"She liked it immediately."
Translation:Le è piaciuto immediatamente.
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Wouldn't it be "le piaceva immediatemente" which is what I used but it was apparently wrong.
- 1479
Piaceva indicates something happening over a period of time. Immediatamente is incompatible with this.
Why does piacere take essere as an auxiliary verb here and not avere? So, why is it not 'le ha piacuto'?
"Piacere" is non transitive verb and it always wants "essere" as auxiliary verb. In English the sentence is "I like ice-cream" --> I is the subject, ice-cream the object. In Italian the sentence is "Mi piace il gelato" = "Il gelato piace a me" (The ice-cream is liked by me). Gelato is the subject. In this particular sentence would be "It was liked by her immediately". If you use this construction even in English "to be" is the auxiliary verb.
So where's the "it" in this?
Without the actual subject mentioned, this could be as well be "She liked him immediately", right?
And where did the "a" disappear? Do you not use it if the subject of piace is not explicitly mentioned?
Is it just a rule that '-e' in "le" does not elide (i.e. le + è= l'è). I wrote "l'è piaciuto immediatamente" and it was wrong...Even if it is a rule, do any Italian speakers actually pronounce it separately as "le è"?
Yes, because the subject of this sentence is actually "it." A closer translation would be "It was immediately pleasing to her." Thus, "her" being represented by "le"
It was accepted when I tried it. As I understand it, if the object she liked is a feminine noun, it works.
See above Tina607664's question and the answers given. But, for this sentence, "le" is used instead of "lei" because, grammatically, the former is a dative pronoun while the latter is a nominal pronoun and the verb "piacere" is a "dative verb." That linguistic explanation likely sounds rather abstract, so here's another way to understand it: The Italian language has no direct equivalent of the verb "to like"- instead the verb "piacere," more literally translated, means "to please" or "to be pleasing." So, to say an English sentence such as "She likes it" in Italian, one has to literally say "It pleases her"/"It is pleasing to her." Note that in the literal translation, there is no "she" (the nominal pronoun- "lei" in Italian); instead, there is "her"/"to her" (the dative pronoun- "le" in Italian). Therefore, this simple phrase ("She likes it") in Italian would be "Le piace" (literally "It pleases her") and "She likes them" would be "Le piacciono" (literally "They please her"). Note that in Italian, the verb "piacere," since the literal translation is "to please," is conjugated based on the object that is causing the pleasure- NOT the person who experiences the pleasure (so note that the verb changed from singular "piace" to plural "piacciono"). So, for this exercise, the English sentence "She liked it immediately" in Italian has to literally be "It pleased her immediately," so it is "Le è piaciuto immediatamente." I hope that helps.