"Il direttore del museo era tenuto in quella prigione."
Translation:The museum director was held in that prison.
39 Comments
He or she must have been selling off the priceless artefacts to spend on cars, holidays and good times :-)
1813
Behind most duoLingo sentences one can find a novel (or the diary of a madman)
Why does Duo give us a sentence in passive voice if we are studying past perfect?
You're wrong. The verb ''essere'' in the passive voice is used as ''to be'' and in the past perfect as ''to have''. So the passive past perfect would be ''had been + participle''.
I guess "era tenuto" translates better with "was held", and "era stato tenuto" with "had been held". Not sure though.
Thank you for the comment on the verbs. Actually I also wanted to know if you could say " the museum's director" as well as " the museum director".
- 1723
DL accepts "had been kept" as well, but it might be the case that DL is wrong and you are right :-)
“aveva stato tenuto” is not correct? Is essere always the auxiliary for past passive voice? (fr: “avait été retenu”)
I wonder what passive constructions should be in this lesson. They may look like past perfect (era + ...uto) but are not. The example simply states that 'someone kept him in prison'.
"was held" is not past perfect and in addition it's passive, neither of which it seems we're doing in this exercise. No problem, it's just surprising.
In the English translation, should held/kept be a necessary addition? I got docked off, though I didn't think they would be needed...
I'm assuming you wrote only that the director 'was in prison'. I'd have to say that if so, then there is definitely a difference and that 'held/kept' adds a bit of information over simply 'was' - if that's what you wrote.
"detenere" is to hold (in prison) or detain; and the participle is "detenuto".
Is "was being held" out of the question? I see here that that's one of the options if you mouse over "era."
I tried using curator but it didn't take it. Is that different than a director?
Should't "The director of the museum was being held in the prison." be accepted?
RCDC: I agree with the proviso that 'was held' and 'was being held" aren't always interchangeable. "was being held' implies he was there at a certain time in the past, without indicating whether he was / is still there. "was held" also applies to the past, but in this case it could imply that he in no longer there; he was released at some point. So he was held there but isn't there any longer. "was being held" to me implies that at the time under discussion that's where he was -- it says nothing about what happened afterwards. Otherwise, given a clearer context, then I'd agree the two phrases would describe the same situation.
In Italian, is the "in" in the sentence must be spoken as "inna"? It is very misleading for me with the way the speaker says that.
- 503
I used manager instead of director and the answer was rejected as wrong
