"It is not my wife's couch."
Translation:Non è il sofà di mia moglie.
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Because "moglie" and "marito" are nouns that follow the same rule which applies to family members:
- 1 family member = NO definite article before possessive (Lei è mia moglie, Lui è suo fratello)
- 2 or more family members = there IS a definite article before possessive (le nostre moglie, I suoi fratelli)
One lingot to the man that took the time to explain that for the rest of us. Thank you!
But why is it di mia moglie? As in I thought "di" was only used for masculine plural
di= of del= of the (m) della=of the (f) so without the mia, of the wife would be della moglie
It's one of those pesky irregular masculine singular nouns that doesn't end with e or o. Given that it has an accent over the last letter à it'll probably be the same word in the plural as well, i sofà, the sofas. Another one like this is città (city). It's an invariable noun
I suspect it is a word that has been taken from another language, they often turn out to be masculine, like the list of greek ones in the link above. Mostly I hear people use the word divano instead
I used divano, and the alternate correct answer had 'divano'...maybe you spelled it wrong?
argh no matter how many times I do this question I can't get the combination of words right, "the sofa is not of my wife" or "the wife of me is not my sofa" idk i can never get it
When something is said to be "of someone" in Italian, e.g. "of my wife", then we use the possessive "'s" in English = "my wife's". So "il sofá di mia moglie" = "the sofa of my wife" = "the sofa is my wife's". If it's negative then you'd get "il sofá non è di mia moglie" = "the sofa is not of my wife" = "the sofa is not my wife's". :)
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Is there a difference between "sposa" and "moglie"? I said "sposa" and it was marked wrong, although it is in the hints. Would "sposa" be more like "bride" than wife?
Because "moglie" is singular for "wife". And "mogli" (wives) is plural. They are exceptions.
The main option for couch I had was 'esprimere' (to express).... did that happen to anyone else? I've reported the fault
Couch is a little used verb meaning to express, as in "I'll couch it in terms you can understand."
Yes, but I was just pointing out to CiarinSmith that it's not a "fault", it's just another meaning of the word. The translation clues given for a word are not necessarily related to the context of the test phrase.
Ah I see, well that DOES make sense, but I'm willing to bet a lot of people don't know that 'couch' is also a verb (I certainly didn't). I momentarily forgot the word for sofa so I hovered, but the clue didn't help me much. It may be correct, but quite misleading as well
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I know it's 'sofà' for couch, but between the answers there was also asprime. Kind a strange..it was a wrong translation
This post has a bit of background info if you want to read it in Italian: https://www.stilearte.it/divano-sofa-ottomana-o-canape-sono-cose-diverse-cosa-significano-i-loro-nomi/
In short, as confusedbeetle wrote, they're the same thing, with different origins: sofa is from Persian, divan from Turkish, and there are also much less common names such as "ottomana" (still a Turkish reference) and "canapè" (from French).
In terms of usage, divano > sofà > everything else. Occasionally you can hear sofà for a stuffed armchair as well (poltrona).
There is only one hint for couch and it is "divano". Why it is not accepted?
You dont need to get it. Just know it. Words that originate from another language are often masculine. There is a post earlier about the origin of sofa, divano and ottoman
I believe it is. Imported words often are. There is a great post early in this thread on this
Look back to f.formica's post. Always great information. Learn something every day
Imported words are often masculine. For interest look back on this thread for formica
Not accepted: non è il sofà di mia sposa. I thought sposa and moglie were synonyms...
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Dl must be wrong .. I checked 2 sites and they both said "non è il divano della mia moglie"
di mia moglie. Usually no article before close relatives with a possessive pronoun.
Many wotds deriving from other languages are masculine, see earlier posts