"Nel giornale scrivono su lui e altri tre."

Translation: In the newspaper they write about him and three others.

[sapolion]

I wrote "In the paper they write about him and the other three." I'm not sure if I was wrong. I would take "and another three", "and three others", and "the other three" as synonomous. I suspect that articles, like "the" and "a" flip a switch in the error correction algorithms. Anyone else have an opinion on this.

[LatecomerLaurie]

(American English speaker) I think I see a difference. "Three others" does not indicate who the others are, but "the other three" means you have already indicated specifically who they are.

[Marninger]

Nel, giornale, scrivono = In the, newspaper, they write
su, lui = on / about, him
e, altri, tre = and, others, three ~ and three others

In the newspaper they write about him and three others.

As LatecomerLaurie pointed out there should be no article, only the indefinite 'three others'.

[Sandra850551]

I put the same and it was marked wrong.

[Dan_90]

Why not "ed altri"? I thought you had to write "ed" when the next word starts with a vocal.

[silkwarrior]

Great question - it did for me and my heart - anyone care to answer? Or is this one of those scattered DL mistakes/glitches?

[sandrabruck]

No, in modern Italian there is the tendency to use the forms ed, ad and od only if the following word begins with the same vowel:

• ed elegante

• ad andare

• od oggi

[silkwarrior]

wonderful reply - thanks for your "on the ground" knowledge and guidance - have a lingot.

[silkwarrior]

ps - what' "od"? - can't find it on wordref

[sandrabruck]

yes, the word "o" = or (synonyms oppure, ovvero)

http://www.wordreference.com/iten/od (you have to go to the "Collins")

[silkwarrior]

thank you sandra - odd that it isn't in wordref

[CiaoRiccardo]

If it was 'the other three', would it need to be 'gli altri tre'? As it stands, 'altri' has no article so I guess it just means 'others'. I also wrote 'the other three' but now see the error of my ways ;-)

[Irene812588]

And i have a question on the first part of the sentence. I wrote " in the newspaper it is written..." and not "they write...". Does it really matters if i make word by word translation if i understand/translate the meaning?

[Marninger]

As long as you understand that
scrivono = they write
but
it is written = è scritto

[Sharon.Montoya]

I have the same answer as the sentence and it was marked wrong