"He wants to keep the people safe."
Translation:Lui vuole tenere la gente al sicuro.
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I think I figured this one out. By itself, sicuro is either an adjective or a noun. As an adjective it means "safe" and as a noun it means "a safe place."
http://www.wordreference.com/iten/sicuro
Used as an adjective, we could get "He wants to keep the safe people" (those without guns, maybe) but to get "He wants to keep the people safe" we need an adverb phrase, which we can get via a preposition. So Lui vuole tenere la gente al sicuro literally means "he wants to keep the people in a safe place."
As always, some feedback from a native speaker would be very welcome.
Lui vuole tenere la gente al sicuro. Lui vuole tenere la gente al caldo. Lui vuole tenere la gente a distanza. Lui vuole tenere la gente al freddo. Lui vuole tenere la gente all'albergo. Ma! Lui vuole tenere la gente felice. Lui vuole tenere la gente confusa. Lui vuole tenere la gente divisa.
Non so la ragione.
1460
Very helpful to know, that sicuro here is a noun, see the examples down at Alessandra. But it means more than safe place. It means here safe condition or state, situation, status ... (Like security, safeness ...)
Right. Another question: Since "tenere" itself can also mean "keep safe," the translation could be read as "He wants to keep the people safe in safety." Isn't that overkill? Why not use "restare" instead?
I think "tenere" means "keep safe" in the sense of "holding onto", not in the sense of "keeping in safety".
The issue here isn't the grammar; it's the difference between sicuro and al sicuro. From wordreference, the former means safe as in non-threatening and the latter is the context this sentence requires. Tenere + qualcuno/qualcosa + adj. is perfectly legitimate grammar to say "keep someone/something [adjective]" whereas your comment implies that it would translate to "keep [adj] someone/something". A couple of example sentences from wordreference to justify my point: To keep sth clean: tenere qc pultio(-a) To keep sb busy: tenere qn occupato(-a)
I think it's to make sure it translates to a meaning of 'in a state of safety' rather than as Viggiatore said, to have him wanting to keep safe people (as pets?)
Why can't I use mantenere, as in : Vuole mantenere le persone al sicuro?
- 2540
why is it "securo"? I wrote "secura" because of "la gente" and was marked incorrect.
It has nothing to do with "la gente" but rather with the ". . al sicuro" part. Check the reply from GregHullender above for details.
I think sicuro means safe as in not dangerous: "it's a safe neighbourhood". Al sicuro means safe as in not in danger: "you're safe in this neighbourhood".
I think that my translation means the same thing " Lui vuole mantenere la sicurezza della gente"
