"È più facile di quello che credevo."
Translation:It is easier than I thought.
54 CommentsThis discussion is locked.
È più facile = It is easier
di quello = than this
che credevo = that I believed/thought
It is easier than this that i thought
~ It's easier than I thought
335
When I would like to say - it's easier yhen i thought ---- can it be just --- E piu facile di credevo ??
- 108
In this sentence, "di quello" is the explicit comparison "than that" (idiomatic translation, not literal). "che" acts to connect separate clauses. I think of it as a kind of glue in Italian sentences.
"E' piu' facile (it is more easy) di quello (than that (thing)) che (which/that) credevo (I used to believe)."
- 108
No. Italian requires explicit comparisons, whereas English gets away with implicit ones a lot (for example, "See the above explanations"; above where? above here).
- 1854
It's a weird construction, peiple moan about antique usages in English but the literal translation is "it is more easy than that which i used to think" which would be viewed as incredibly clumsy in English!
If you actually used the word 'then' in your translation, that's the problem. You wanted 'than.'
- 342
It was marked wrong for me, but I feel it should be correct since "credevo" is imperfect (hence, "than what i was thinking")? Reported 26 July 2031
- 342
It was marked wrong for me, but I feel it should be correct since "credevo" is imperfect (hence, "than what i was thinking")? Reported 26 July 2021
'It is easier than I thought it would be' - and I thought it worth spelling out!
I would think it is incorrect because you have used a conditional clause.
Because while in English we say thought, it's referring to a belief, pensavo refers to the act of thinking as opposed to a belief, which is credevo
Credere is the root present tense, in the past tense it changes, just like in English we use believe and believed
I'm seeing di quello and che as separate ways of saying "than" but not when put together? Is this actually grammatically correct?
It’s really just the “di” that means “than.” “Che” by itself can mean “than” in different contexts, but here it’s a relative pronoun:
È più facile... It’s easier...
È più facile di quello... It’s easier than that (thing)...
È più facile di quello che credevo. It’s easier than that thing that I believed.
In English that sounds super awkward, though, so we say, “It’s easier than I thought/believed.” In Italian you need all of the stuff in between, though.
- 2034
In the expression "di quello che" di = than, quello = that, and che = which. So , "è più facile di quello che credevo" can be translated literally as "it is easier than that which I thought." In Italian, "that which" is required; in English it is omitted. By the way "ciò che" can be substituted for "quello che."
- 108
Personally, I think that is actually a better way to translate this sentence, though I also feel there is a significant difference between believing and thinking. I think that distinction is really only important in American settings as we tend to have a severe problem with separating believe and thought.
