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- Topic: Italian >
- "Io ho l'ape."
123 Comments
These would be much easier if they gave us some context. Something like a picture. Also I have never said nor heard anyone say I have the bee to me before. In what situation would you say to someone I have the bee?
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!"
One of the first rules when you learn a new language is that you do not try to translate it to your native language. Many times it will not make sense. Just learn the words and the way they speak it and soon you will see results.
Half the exercises here ask me to translate to or from my native language.
I think he means not to translate literally, or not to translate word for word, as grammer can be different.
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.
"In what situation would you say to someone I have the bee?"
While translating a sentence on DuoLingo. :-)
When I was a kid I learned a song called "I'm bringing home a baby bumble bee."
My brother caught a bee. It was stuck in his ice cream, the stinger was covered. He said "i have a bee"
If someone put up "WANTED: BEE" posters everywhere and you found their bee for them and you wanted to tell them
In a case where you were stung by a wasp and everyone was frantic (because wasps can sting again). Then you might be excited to hear this sentence.
"ape" is sort of bike with three wheels, if you are interested google "ape piaggio". piaggio is the brand
what about "the monkey read the book"? thats a sentense you have heard? :)
Well, maybe in plural, Io ho le api nella mia camera da camera da letto. I have bees in my bedroom.
A line taken from a low budget italian horror film about a human/bee hybrid monster called L'ape. Speaks the hero upon securing the beast (or beest, if you prefer): IO HO L'APE!!!!
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 ...
We Americans refer to "buggies" all the time, so I don't find it surprising that someone would call a car a "Bee."
I think it’s a direct link from “Vespa” which means “wasp”, the bee is a working version of the wasp hence “Ape”.
Hahaha I thought the same. I didn't know what kind of animal was the topo Gigio hahaha
- 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
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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..
A kid could have caught a bee, you know like in a jar, and go up to his dad and say 'io ho l'ape'.
Then morales come into effect.
I'm Italian and the pronunciation is not right at all. That sounds like "io o l'appe" which means nothing. "Ho" should be pronounced more open; "l'ape" has a single P, which means that it has to be pronounced gently.
This makes sense because duolingo has taken inspiration from Zelda games (hearts/gems) and Link can put bees in jars. Yeah I'm a geek whatever
I agree that it is confusing to hear such a random/uncommon sentence out of context. I mistakenly heard "Io ho latte" which sounds very similar and is a much more common statement in everyday conversation.
According to all known laws of aviation, there is no way a bee should be able to fly. Its wings are too small tyo get its fat little body off the ground. The bee, of course, flies anyway becasuse bees don't care what humans think is impossible.
- 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.
Depends if you are friends with the bee in question, or if you have hogged the first bee that flew by.
it's exactly the opposite, when referring to the car we mostly say:"ho l'ape" (i have the bee)
The "Ape" is a three-wheeled light commercial vehicle produced by Piaggio. Out of this context the sentence doesn't make any sense
I thought I wouldn't have to see the translation of this one first. Little did I know that "ape" translates to "bee"
The way it sounds on my iPad is “io ho latte”. I would say that “I have milk” makes a lot more sense than “I have the bee”. I’ve listened to it over and over again and it’s definaitely a “T” not “P” ! They need a new Italian speaker. This woman is rubbish.
- 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
I heard it too like "io ho latte" (my native language is a non Indo-European language)
A previous phrase for transl of 'the zoo' and duo corrected me with 'Io zoo'. Why was io used rather than il or la? Can someone explain?
The noun zoo is m. (article il - changes in front of some consonants (see explanations below) in: lo zoo) and bee is fem. (article la - eludes in front of vowels: l'ape)
- 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)
It's strange,right?Who carries a bee with them unless they want to get stung by them...
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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').
Here they use 'io ho'. In other sentences we are marked as 'incorrect' when we use the article.
When we have to pronounce "io ho" the word "ho" is almost always marked as an error. I can't understand what I am doing wrong.
Weird that it accepted lappe instead of l'ape for me! Oh well, happy days.
I hear from the recording l'latte rather than l'ape. A picture or some sort of clue would be helpful.
I would hope that I would never have to say this I'm glad that I can but still.
This is exactly what i HATE about language learning. Stupid and useless examples which keep repeating till you have to puke.
- 361
I wrote exactly what it is and it came up wrong... not happy about losing health for being correct!!!!!!!!!
Under what circumstances would one ever say, "I have the bee."? Are these phrases computer generated?
I would just like to know what would make an "almost right" into a "correct...
