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- "La metà dei francesi lo vuol…
22 Comments
I wrote: the half of French people want it. DL marked it wrong and corrected it to: "The half the french people want it". It sounds strange for me. But I'm not a native English speaker, so my question is for the English natives: does somebody really say that way in English "the half the french people"? Thanks for help!:)
No, they don't. "Half the French people" or "half of the French people". Never the half.
1217
La metà = the half ~ half
dei (di+i) francesi = of the French
lo = him/it
vuole = (he/she/it)* wants
Half of the French it wants ~
Half of the French want it
I am English. Nobody says "the half the french people". We would say "Half of the French people"
I'm an American living in Italy. A english-speaker would say, "half the french people want it." I put, "half of france wants it." which means the same but is perhaps not exact enough for DL.
I don´t understand. Why the translation is not: Half of the French wants it?
English treats "half of the French" as a plural. I suppose it picks that up from "the French" being plural. "Half of an apple" is singular!
- 504
La meta' lo vuole. Dunque ci vorrebbe "wants" e non "want". Altrimenti la frase sarebbe: la meta' dei francesi lo vogliono
i put "half of French people" not "the French people" and it was marked wrong. Seemed ok to me. Comments??
- 887
Is there a reason it's "lo" and not "la"? Does it refer to something grammatically masculine not in the sentence or can "lo" be a generic it?
- 1217
I guess you are referring to the "lo vuole" part?
It can just as well be "la vuole", - provided that what "half of the French" want is something of the female gender.
