"The woman writes to the boys."
Translation:La donna scrive ai ragazzi.
15 Comments
69
To be more specific: "al"=a+il, while "ai"=a+i
You use "ai" on "ragazzi" because it takes the "i" definite article.
"zii" (uncles), for example, is also plural, but you use "agli"(=a+gli) on it as a prepositional article.
Similarly, you say "allo zucchero", "all'uovo" (both singular), etc.
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The same goes for all other prepositional articles:
• nel=in+il, nella=in+la, nello=in+lo, negli=in+gli..
• del=di+il, delle=di+le, degli=di+gli..
• sul=su+il, sull'=su+l', sui=su+i..
I don't understand why "gli zii" is correct, since zii doesn't start with a vowel. Is it an exception?
"Gli" is also used before plural nouns that begin with "z", "s + a consonant", "ps", "gn" and "y" because it is the plural form of "Lo".
I wrote "alle" instead of "ai" and got it wrong. Is "alle" a feminine plural?
ai is used for words that go with the article i, and al is for those that go with il
I just want to let everyone know that i accidentally said "la donna scrive ai panini." It pays to watch what youre doing, kids! Hahaha
I don't why but I I hoping the woman knows those kids she's writing tho. xD
In Italian when you have a group of all girls, you use ragazze. If it's all boys or a mix of boys and girls you use ragazzi.
This goes for all group words in Italian. A group of 5 women and 1 man is grammatically masculine. Without context you wouldn't immediately know whether there are girls in the group or not.
