"Entrambe le ragazze indossano un costume bianco."
Translation:Both girls wear a white outfit.
27 Comments
The audio says "indosSAno". But according to Maiden & Robustell's "A Reference Grammar of Modern Italian": "3rd person plurals of verbs ending in -ano, -ono, -ino, -ero, and first person plural subjunctive forms in -ssimo have prepenultimate stress (’parole sdrucciole’)", i.e. inDOSsano). While there are undoubtedly various irregularities in the various forms of spoken Italian, surely it makes sense to make sure that learners encounter the standard form first.
great site. This woman's pronumciations are terrible. There have been so many complaints. I do wonder why she has not been removed and a better speaker used. I certainly hope DUO did not pay her.
It isn't a person who says the sentences. It is a machine and the sentences are "read" automatically. The technology is called text-to-speech (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Speech_synthesis). That's why it's so bad sometimes.
Thanks for explaining this. I find the rise and fall odd, specially when it's a matter of a question or not. But I find it funny sometimes how learners are so self-confident about pronunciation, just because they have read some rules!
I also heard a "t" sound in "indossano" and I heard "UNA" costume, which I knew could not be right.
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I heard the "una" too but I have had to repeat this exercise so many times that I know it isn't right by now.
One more problem: wouldn't we tend to say they are both wearing white outfits, just as we say that they both have red noses, where Italians might say they both have a red nose? Though I'm all for nose-sharing...
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I was thinking the same thing, and came here expecting a discussion about "both" vs. "each". Though I'm guessing the grammar Italian version of the sentence is correct, the English version (while someone saying it that way would likely be understood) leaves something to be desired.
There was a similar comment in another lesson, something about animals having a soul/souls. According to a native Italian speaker "Entrambe le ragazze indossano costumi bianci" would mean that each girl is wearing more than one white outfit in Italian. Personally, I've come to think that either "both are wearing white outfits" and "both are wearing a white outfit" as natural English and getting the meaning from context without thinking about it much.
Any thoughts on whether "indossare" could be translated as "dress in"? (As "Both girls dress in a white outftit."???
Any thoughts on "dressed in" as opposed to 'wearing? I use the verb "portare" for "to wear". and "indossare" for "to dress in'
a more natural translation would be "both girls are wearing white outfits"
Two problems: BOTH means two, how do they wear "A" white outfit? Why does DL not understand that "dress in" is English for "wear"?
