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- Topic: Italian >
- "Io ho l'ape."
123 Comments
I agree that it's an odd little sentence. But they aren't teaching us phrases to memorize to use as is. They're teaching us vocabulary and grammar so that we can create our own sentences. Actually, I wonder if they use somewhat nonsensical sentences for a reason - it forces us to pay attention to the vocabulary and grammar, because memorizing these phrases is NOT going to help us.
Exactly. Spot on. I find these sometimes rather nonsensical sentences and phrases helpful to get the gist out of the grammer rules. Just as translating things from the target language into not-so-idiomatical English helps me grasp sentence structure and word order. To me, it's not, "Why on earth are they doing it like that? Makes no sense", but rather, "ah, that's how it works in Italian! Cool! Now I understand!"
Sometimes they do introduce the words with pictures, but I think they haven't uploaded any bee images yet. And I suppose in a situation where you have just been stung by a bee, your friend might pick it up and say that he has the bee that stung you. But it's just a basic way of introducing a word. We haven't learned many verbs yet.
1001
Not sure if this is an internal joke by Duolingo. "L'ape" in this context, is more likely to refer to this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piaggio_Ape :-)
A strange car whose name is Bee ?!? Incredible ... I think that is just to fix the word ... I remember, when I was Young (long time ago, eheheh ...), I always watch the cartoon from Topo Gigio ... Just after previous lesson, I learnt that topo means mouse ... I like this way to fix, repeating the same thing several times until it will be burned in your brain ... very good ...
1424
Topo Gigio was a mouse puppet and he was very cute. He used to appear on the Ed Sullivan Show, which is how some of us old people who aren't from Italy or Spain know about him. His signature line to Ed Sullivan was always, "Eddie, kiss me good night." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Topo_Gigio
387
yeah - the voice recording is especially indistinct. I listened to it several times and still thought she was saying "io ho latte."
813
if you ever want to see it again, come to thedocks at midnight with five dollars in unmarked bills..
774
In several episodes of The Flying Nun, Sally Field explained that anything will fly if lift plus thrust is greater than load plus drag.
Bees have large bodies and small wings so they look like they should not be able to fly but their bodies are very light and they move their wings very fast which generates a lot of lift and thrust.
1001
That would be scimmia though I am not sure about the difference between 'monkey' and 'ape'
774
I do not know any language except English that differentiates apes and monkeys.
When I studied biology, the lecturer at London Zoo told us that an ape is not a monkey, but modern zoologists regard apes as a sub-section of monkeys. So, all apes are monkeys but only some monkeys are apes.
1001
You're right: the way it's pronounced it's (slightly) incorrect but not the way you mention.
What I hear (native speaker here) is: io ho l'ap(p)e. The 'p' seems to be oddly long. It's longer than a single 'p', yet shorter than a double one.
I'm not sure why you (and others) are reporting hearing io ho latte. Maybe the different way Italian pronounces it's 'p's (that is without a puff)?
https://www.thoughtco.com/italian-consonants-2011630
141
@SheTuti is not exactly that: il changes to lo in front of z and s+consonant only. In plural that becomes gli; il changes to l' in front of vowels. In plural also becomes gli; la also changes to l' in front of vowels. In plural always becomes le. Ape is masculine: un ape. If it was feminine it should be un'ape.
1001
ape is actually feminine: un'ape (plural: le api). It doesn't have a masculine form (well, it has, but it's a different word: fuco -> 'drone').
For those who are interested in http://www.oneworlditaliano.com/english/italian-grammar/italian-definite-articles.htm
The entire grammar rule is:
Lo : for masculine singular nouns which start with:
s + consonant, ie. lo studente, lo spagnolo, lo scontrino / the student, the Spanish guy, the receipt
z, ie. lo zaino, lo zio / the backpack, the uncle
y, ie. lo yogurt, lo yen / the yoghurt, the yen
ps, ie. lo psicologo / the psychologist
pn, ie. lo pneumatico / the tyre
gn, ie. lo gnomo / the gnome
Furthermore:
L' : for feminine singular singular nouns which start with a vowel, ie. l' ape / the bee, l'insalata / the salad, l'ora / the hour
(sono di madrelingua italiana)
573
This sentence keeps coming up for me to say, and every time it does not recognise my pronunciation of l'ape. Most frustrating. Because it's always wrong, it keeps coming back!
1001
It makes sense that it comes back until you've mastered it.
Ape is pronounced as 'ah-peh' ('ah' like the a in 'master' and 'eh' like the e in 'bed').
361
I wrote exactly what it is and it came up wrong... not happy about losing health for being correct!!!!!!!!!