"Sono contento che lui giochi di pomeriggio e non di sera."
Translation:I am happy he plays in the afternoon and not in the evening.
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929
I put I am happy he plays in the afternoon And not the evening but was penalised for omitting the second 'in'
1348
I would rather think that he formerly played in the evening but has changed his schedule. Your interpretation would also require a conjunctive in the main sentence.
I tried "I am happy that he should play in the afternoon and not in the evening." Of course it was marked wrong as the course designers insist that English indicatives must be the equivalent of Italian subjunctives. It would be nice if they explained their preference.
The two sentences mean two different things:
"I am happy that he plays...": He is absolutely positively playing; there is not the least little doubt about it. The use of the simple present (instead of the progressive present) shows that, in fact, his playing in the afternoon is a regular occurrence which happens to make me happy. He has been playing in the afternoon for some time now, will play in the afternoon again today, and will be playing in the afternoon in the future as well. There is no doubt, no uncertainty. We ar not talking about any potentiality. This is all established fact. The designers' comments on the subjunctive, however, do not suggest that the Italian subjunctive is used for stating established fact.
"I am happy that he should play..." Other times of day for his playing have been under consideration, and he has not yet played. He is on the verge of playing -- and the proposed time is the afternoon, but because he has not yet played, there is still uncertainty in the matter.
Another possibility would be with an infinitive: "I am happy for him to play..."
However, usually when learning a new language it helps to "get" the new language's modes of expressing things if one can use the same modes in one's own language.
How would you then say "I am happy IF he plays in the afternoon and not in the evening"? That's what I put (and was marked wrong), since I thought the subjunctive was supposed to be used for uncertainty, so I thought it was supposed to mean "He hasn't played yet, I know he is going to, so I would be happy if he plays in the afternoon and not in the evening".