40 Comments
Tough word asciugamani for such a simple item. Reminds me of when I learned German in high school.
I like this so much because "asciuga" reminds me of "enxugar" in Portuguese, which means "dry" [hands and stuff] and "mani" reminds me of hands, it makes totally sense to me, but it does remind German xDD
lol .. it is exactly like German, I recently found out :-)
Mi asciugo le mani = I dry my hands.
Yes....even me, when I have seen this word I have thought about German words :/
This is exactly right. Thank you for the etymology! In Italian, Asciugare = to dry. Le mane = hands.
What if you need to dry something else besides your hands? Asciugapiedi? Asciugagambe?
Simply because we wash and dry our hands more frequently than our feet, every day. Is it different for you?
Or maybe because towels are for drying by hand: using the hands to hold/move the towel.
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It's the same in French! I suck at french spelling, but It's something like essuyer.
For xyphax : It means simply and clearly (an item that) "dries (the) hands" . More precise than the E. towel, coming from the old French toaille (with similar pronounce) meaning pitifully "cloth"
She is an annoying robot. Isn't she computer generated? I thought that was why she sounded so distorted so often.
Because we are not buying particular towels (for instance "we are buying the towels we see)
Only in certain part of Italy "salvietta", which is the French "serviette" (= that serves)
Why "we buy towels" is correct and "we are buying towels" is not when "we are buying bath towels" is correct?
I was going to put "are buying" as it sounds more natural to me, an Englishwoman, but then I remembered that Duolingo seems to dislike the continuous form of verbs. I have often lost hearts by translating into normal, everyday English.
there's another tense called the gerundio (the gerund) that covers this. Even though compriamo could technically be "we are buying," the gerundio of comprare means "buying." So the gerund is typically used like that and the present is typically used just like "we buy"
So which is more commonly actually said in Italy, we are doing something, or we do something? I think it confuses a lot of Native English speakers because we often say we are doing things not we do things.
Yes - in English, we use the gerund form if the action is current and continuing ('we are buying towels' - ie, right now, that is what we are doing) and the simple present tense if we do the thing as a matter of course (I play golf - ie, not necessarily right now, but typically). My sense (mainly from DL) is that Italian often uses the simple present for the first purpose, and the gerundio to emphasize that the action is happening right now (eg, Sto acquistando = I am shopping - ie, right now). However, I'd love to have a native Italian speaker confirm this suspicion.
Actually, I think you mean present participle, not gerund. They are the same word, but used differently. A gerund is a form of a verb as a noun. "We ARE BUYING towels is using BUYING in the present participle form. My understanding is that Italian doesn't have a present participle tense, but that the simple present tense can be used to mean "we buy" or "we are buying." "BUYING towels can be fun" uses the same word as a gerund -- BUYING here is used as a noun.
In Italian 'we are buying' can be expressed in the present progressive tense as 'stiamo comprando'. It is a specific use of the gerundio that Antony mentions above. More on progressive here:
http://tutorino.ca/grammatica/2007/4/27/the-present-progressive-i-am-walking.html
I've finally chosen the shortest form to type, which seems just fine to me under the given circumstances, although DL has been accepting other forms such as "Let's buy" and/or the continuous form .
I've also come to understand DL gives us a very good, simple progressive pattern of learning to speak. The purpose at the moment isn't too specifically focused on translation, as that would require a context and understanding (which anyhow computers really can't master, fortunately!).
So it's much quicker and efficient to just play the rules of the game, and stay focused on learning!
When I do come to report something, I've had the pleasant surprise of receiving a message accepting it and thanking me!
I wonder about that myself. Duolingo seems to overemphasize the simple present tense, but what's important is the intent and in that case, "I am buying towels" probably makes more sense most of the time.
Yeah, that's a bug! It belongs in the household items category. We don't wear towels. You should report that.
i am a great granny help me please 'why is it bath towels in one and just towels in another what am i doing wrong
The translation I see above is considered WRONG where we have to give our answers. Better last than never. But who put, like "right" answer, bath towel? One who uses a towel only in the bathroom? Is he still working for DL ? A reply would be appreciated
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Why isn't it "Compriamo gli asciugamani." or "Compriamo degli asciugamani."?
