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- Topic: Italian >
- "The cats are ours."
"The cats are ours."
Translation:Le gatte sono le nostre.
86 Comments
Another correct solution:
<pre>Le gatte sono le nostre
</pre>
how can this be another correct solution when the plural of il gatto is i gatti and not le gatte??
587
"Le gatte" in this case would mean all the cats were female. If the cats were all male or male and female or you just weren't sure, then "i gatti" would be fine.
I understand what you're saying but the sentence in no way states the cats are all female. How are we to know this?
How do we know that "The cats are ours." means they we all female?
- 363
We don't. You can translate it either way, and as long as you haven't made any mistakes, it should be accepted. If not, report it.
All male or mixed: I gatti sono (i) nostri
All female: Le gatte sono (le) nostre
But I live in Italy and everyone says le gatte is wrong. Probably only cat breeders use it so duolingo shouldn't be teaching it
I put 'il gatti sono nostri', which was marked 'wrong'. It's so frustrating when everything you've learned says you're right! Is it worth reporting? Never get feedback or explanations..... only on here ~ which I'm very grateful for. Thank you all!
- 134
The reason 'il gatti sono nostri' is that 'il' is singular, and your talking about multiple cats. It should be 'i gatti sono nostri'.
Agree. This is a very anoying thing: one cannot know from the question.
I gatti definitely wasn't fine when I tried it, but I had no way of knowing that by the wording of the question. A similar problem frequently happens with plural vs singular you.
I just re-entered 'i gatti sono nostri' and it was accepted! Try doing it again.... they might have checked their answer now....
Does this apply for all animals (i.e. things that have a real-world gender)? If so it's different to French, where 'cat' stays masculine regardless of the gender of the actual animal. Thanks!
It is not different to French: i gatti = les chats; le gatte = les chattes (female). Same logic...
Good question - am awaiting a reply - thanks also to coobster for the initial question.
This is interesting because, in french, people generally avoid chatte and chienne because they are slang for certain swear words.
No, we don't. In everyday language, a cat is a cat, a dog is a dog. We don't avoid using these words, just because some people don't use it in the good way.
I just wrote "i gatti sono le nostre" and it did not accept it. It said "le gatte" is the right answer
I think that's because the "le nostre" did not agree with the gender of "i gatti". As long as both the subject and possessive are the same gender, it's correct
If there is only 1 cat and it is female, you would say "la gatta" and if there was more than 1 female cat, you would say "le gatte".
For 1 male cat, it is "il gatto" and for more than 1 cat (either male or a mixture of male/female) you would say "i gatti".
Bottom line is that both "i gatti" and "le gatte" are correct, depending on the cat's gender(s)!
I put 'i gatti sono nostri' - missed out the article - but my answer was still correct. Is the article optional or is this a bug? Thanks!
when the possessive adjective follows a form of essere the article is optional. For example: i cani sono miei or i cani sono i miei.
I wonder if you already have the definite article once in reference to the nouns the second one is optional.
It's been put right now.. frustrating though!! Maybe they do it on purpose, to make sure we talk to each other!
I wrote "i gatti sono i nostri" but the answer given was "le gatte sono le nostre" There was no indicate that they were female cats.
When it's a group of all female cats, then "le gate" applies. But that just makes this a truly silly exercise, as far as I can tell.
Is nostre dependant on what version of gatto is used? Or the other way around?
Why is it "sono"? If they "ARE OUR" cats, why isn't it siete? Isn't siete the word for "are" when referring to our property? Doesn't "sono" mean the cats are "their" cats?
If it doesn't clarify m/f cats then what? "I gatti sono le nostre" was wrong. I had to translate "the cats are ours."
- 587
If their genders are unknown then you should use "gatti" as that's a descriptor for multiple male cats, cats of unknown gender, and a mixture of male and female cats. "Gatte" is a descriptor for multiple female cats. "Gatta" is a singular female cat. And "gatto" is a singular male cat, and I'd assume a cat of unknown gender.
"I gatti sono le nostre" should be "I gatti sono i nostri".
When is it i, io, or il preceeding a word? For example, why is it: "Io ho"not "i ho" "I gatti" not "il gatti" Is there a rule I can learn to help me remember? Please!
First 'io' means 'I' (english I, as in I am so and so. Like spanish 'yo') so 'io ho' would mean i have. Or u could just say 'ho' which would also mean i have. U can include or exclude io next to ho. Because ho already implies io.
'I' (italian i) is the plural form of il. So il gatto (the cat) in plural would be i gatti (the cats).
You wouldn't say i ho. You could say io ho il gatto (i have the cat). Or ho il gatto. Or io ho i gatti (i have the cats). Or ho i gatti.
- 28
technically that means 'they are our cats' rather than 'the cats are ours'. small difference, but still...
If gatto is masculine in the singular, isn't the plural also masculine i gatti or is this some sort of exception to the rule?
So is cat feminine or masculine??? Gatto masculine but le gatti is now plural feminine??? Arrggh
il gatto is masculine, therefor i gatti is plural - why hasn't this been corrected?
So you have to know if these cats are male or female???????? I put i gatti and it was wrong
I don't know, but I get the idea that "le gatte" is not something that's going to show up in Italian daily usage too often, know what I mean? How often does one speak of a group of only female cats? I don't think I ever have, until this very moment...
I vote that "i gatti" should also be accepted, under the circumstances.
- 421
If you want to use the alternative 'i gatti' then it needs to be followed by 'sono i nostri' then both answers 'i gatti sono i nostri' and 'le gatte sono le nostre' are correct.
Yes. il gato == the cat, i gatti == the cats.
Italian does the romance language thing of matching gender and number in the associate particles of a sentence, the silly thing... :)
Mark the correct meaning The cats are ours.
Correct solution: Le gatte sono le nostre. This is not right! The cats are PLURAL! Should it not be I gatti instead of le gatti ????
The choices were: Le gatti sono le nostre Le gatte รจ le nostre. Le gatte sono le nostre
None of the options even seemed correct!
Should there not have been an option for: i gatti sono i nostri
On this video at 2:32 it shows Nostro: https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=162&v=RZL7o1L-1UQ&feature=emb_logo
UPDATE: OK so I read some of the other answers here and it looks like this covers an advanced detail that I have not seen outlined in the grammar tips so far (I will look this up elsewhere)
So while the default for cat is masculine is i gatti, if this is a group of ALL FEMALE cats, it becomes feminine (next level weird, but whatev...) so if you see the phrase Le gatte, it is assumed to not be a mistake, but rather a group of female cats.
So "Le gatte sono le nostre." is agreeing with the plural female cats. So this explains why I was getting so many wrong answers on this one thing... Whew! Less ignorant now.
- 199
Gatti is a masculine word. How is this answer correct?.. I tried gatti and nostri and it was counted as wrong :(
I am having trouble guessing if they are females or males, how can one know?
- 429
There is absolutely no indication from the given sentence that the cats are feminine. Therefore from my perspective, i gatti sono i nostri should also be accepted and certainly not counted as "wrong"! Paul
- 832
It does not indicate sex of the cats so you could use either but Duo wants female. Not fair.
- 203
My answer "I gatti sono i nostri" should be accepted. It's not known if the cats are male or female!
This is wrong - cat/cats are masculin therefore il gatto / i gatti. Your system has this wrong.
This is soo frustrating- i know i need to put in a wrong answer just to not lose a heart
