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- "Why do you cry?"
"Why do you cry?"
Translation:Perché piangi?
96 Comments
We would only say "Perché piangi"? In Italian this is the correct way to ask "Why do you cry?"
1189
As the word "you" is already included in "piangi" you should not repeat it.
That is unless you want to put emphasis on you, - but then you should put it at the end of the sentence, "Perché piangi tu?"
Then, as the English word "you" has several meanings, this can also be translated as:
Perché piangi? (you = tu)
Perché piange? (you = Lei)
Perché piangete? (you = voi)
FYI "Perché piangi tu?" (reversing verb and pronoun) was marked as CORRECT. I am still not sure why the other word order is wrong.
- 1624
It's not accepted anymore.
Only Perché piangi or Perché piangete are accepted now. No personal pronouns.
- 1729
Just a little insight regarding this construction: "why do you cry?" refers to crying at any time rather than at a particular time (suggested by "why are you crying?").
As such, non-natives should be aware that it sounds quite clinical, such as something a scientist might say in his thesis to investigate why humans cry. Or similarly, an alien/robot that doesn't understand the concept of crying. :)
- 802
What though if it is a question about "you" crying at thst moment and not a hypothetical question in general?
Why do you cry? made this answer"Correct solutions: Perché piange?, Perché piangete?" Piange????? Why??? Lei/lui piange, not Tu piange! i'm really nervious now. or made correct rules or smth. because it's Indicativo presente, nothing more.
Apparently Duolingo, which usually doesn't acknowledge the formal you ("Lei"), did this time. So technically it's tu piangi, lui/lei/Lei piange. But since Duolingo doesn't teach the Lei form, they shouldn't have included it here. I've noticed they've done that on another question as well.
- 781
Yes, it is annoying when you pose the formal you and it is marked wrong. But here they use it as though everyone is familiar with it.
Marks "perché piange?" as correct but is wrong. The statement refers to the 2nd singular person , while "piange" is 3rd (he/she/it)
12/11/17
on 8 May 2018 the correct solution is marked as "perché piangE?" while it should be "perché piangi?" This was already reported in 2017.
Although the personal pronouns are not required in Italian, it should not be wrong to use them. Was this marked as incorrect? If so, make certain the "tu" was the incorrect part, and not the accent used on Perché
Yes the "tu" was marked incorrect. The incorrect accent on Perche' in this post is because i can't figure out how to make it with my keystrokes
Maybe "Tu perche piangi" would be alright? If someone would like to know why a certain person cries (not nessecarily is crying). In English this would be expressed by stressing the "you".
- 290
Ciao. "peché piangi" was not an option; why?! There were "Perché racconti", "Tu perché racconti" and "Perché piange", which to me seems to be "lei/lui piange". Can someone explain, per favore. Grazie.
- 1729
"Perché piange" is short for "Perché Lei piange", which is the formal way of saying "Why do you cry". "Perché (tu) piangi" is the more informal way of saying the same thing.
- 290
Thank you for taking the time to reply. How, then, do we know which form DL wants us to use, of both piangi and piange are correct for tu and lei/lui? I am still confused.
Wobjam: Plausible explanation ! Thanks. DL should have already done that a long time ago.
If Duolingo is not going to specify with say, you (f), or, as they do on occasion, with 'you all', then they should accept all of the above: 'piangi', 'piange','piangete'. Otherwise they create uneccessary confusion.
- 463
I have seen "perché" written with accento acuto (é) and accento grave (è). Following the comments, you can see that there is some confusion. I believe that "perché" with accento acuto is correct. Can someone verify this?
6/13/19 Still no correct options in multiple choice. It still only offers piange which would be okay to use if Lei (formal or polite form for You) also was included in the multiple choices to relay a question to someone unfamiliar (Perché piange Lei?).
- 1624
The exercise I did on 28 Aug 2017 to get to this discussion gave two answers, one using piange and the other piangete in tranlating "Why do you cry." The first time through, I didn't select piange, and was marked wrong. The second time I selected both.
What bothers me about this is that the verb forms are the formal you Lei painge and the plural you voi piangete. On more occasions than I can to count, Duo has disallowed the Lei form of verbs. Very fickle of it to require it now as a correct answer.
Duolingo usually does not include the formal "you" in its list of correct answers.
My laptop does not have the accent key. The answer is correct except the accent.
- 1624
Do you use Windows? Are you a native US English user?
If so, you can load the US-International keyboard, replacing the default US English keyboard. At that point there are a number of ways of entering accents using the ' ` " and ^ keys before typing a letter. For example: è, é, ë, ê.
- 1804
There were two correct choices here. I selected only one of them which was: Perché piangi. I was marked wrong for not having also selected: Perché piange. How is that second answer also correct for: "Why do you cry"?
- 290
Someone please tell me why the correct option is "Perché piange" instead of "piangi"?! This must be a mistake, right? Grazie.
On the multiple choice version of this question, the correct answer has a misspelling - it shows up as Perché piange, not Perché piangi. There was nowhere in the report option to select an error in the Italian sentence, only the English one.
- 525
Now it is offered PERCHÉ PIANGE as the only variant, there's nither PIANGI or PIANGETE . 10.09.19
- 302
Duo must have it wrong! Why have they put "Perche piange" Should be " piangi or piangete"
You had piange as the only answer without the correct choice of "piangi"
- 178
"Mia sorella (=lei)piange spesso" My sister ofte cries/ "Perché piange" was translated "Why do you cry?" Why?
Why is "perché piange" considered correct? Piange is a third person conjugation, buy "you" is a second person pronoun
After all of the sections I've completed, this is the first time I've ever heard of the formal singular Lei! I thought Voi covered both formal singular and informal/formal plural. Frustrating! This will take quite the adjustment to get used to and I think it should have been addressed sooner.
It accepts "Perché piange" for "Why do you cry" instead of "... piangi".. Is that correct?
Wait, I haven't seen anything from the formal singulars. Is it the formal you here? But it's weaird the app asks me before it teaches me such an important subject.
today the only choice existing was : Preché piange instead of Piangi... typo in the lesson .... It was a little confusing.
- 270
There is no typo, both are OK "Perché piangi?" --> "Why do you cry?" (informal) "Perché piange?" --> "Why do you cry (Sir, Ma'm") (formal)
thanks a lot for your answer! I wasn't aware of this form as it was in no lesson until now...
- 270
conjugation form of a verb in 3rd singular person is in Italian also used for formal/polite addressing someone who we do not know, who deserves the respect, in Italy almost always someone who's elderly. Same with imperative forms, but there is some confusion here, as the verb's endings do differ. I'm sure you know how to say "scusi" "scusi" is a polite/formal form as in imperative this is the 3rd singular person (do not be fooled by the "i" ending, that how it goes in imperative. "scusa" on another hand is just informal way to address your friend ("a' ending is in 2nd singular person, this confuses a lot of people so before you you press "CONFIRM' button always think twice about which person it is, formal/informal form, and is it imperative? to avoid common mistakes) if you are not sure, use this: https://www.wordreference.com/conj/ItVerbs.aspx?v=scusare
Can someone tell me why piangere is not a reflexive verb? If sedersi (e.g we seat ourselves) and riposarsi (e.g. I rest myself), why doesn't piangere (you cry yourself)?
- 270
Good question. So it is not, just it is not. Take it as it is. That's it. But as every language is different in some languages "to cry" can be both (reflexive and not) so you could for example "cry yourself to death". But as I see not in Italian. if you have any doubts, you can always check any verb here: https://www.wordreference.com/iten/piangere
I was only given the option of "piange". Is this possible for a formal you cry?
- 239
I'm only offered 'piange' as an option, not piangi - and it was marked correct. Why? I was looking for piangi, and piange doesn't look right to me at all.
- 270
"piangi" is correct as you already know.
"Perché piange?" means "Why does he/she cry?". So it would be a very correct (grammatically) sentence, just not the right translation in this case.
DL does not have to give us all ready to use forms of the verbs on the plate, and they do not. We have often to look stuff up in a dictionary.
- 239
It's not a matter of looking stuff up in the dictionary. The question given was of the type where we select words, rather than type them in. Only Piange was offered, but piangi would be correct.
- 239
Unfortunately not. I didn't know the discussion could relate to a lot of different lessons.
Why is it perché piange? I was looking for piangi but that was not an option to chose from. A bit confused now
- 270
"Perché piange?" means "Why does he/she cry?" and also (which is the case of above sentence) "Why do You cry?" (when "You" is in a formal form: Sir/Madam)
- 198
There seems to be a mistake. The correct word, "piangi", is not in the choices. Instead, "piange" is in the choices and is accepted as correct,
why not piangi which is correct for tu? why is piange the correct word in the exercise?
- 246
The only word for to cry in this exercise is piange, which is a wrong congregation for you. Could this be corrected?
Due has the correction as Perche piange? But here they are saying Perche piangi. What do they want. They marked mine incorrect Perche tu piangi?
- 254
I had to translate "Perché piangi"(why do you cry) then on this one I had to translate "why do you cry" but the only option was "Perché piange" not "perché piangi" meaning why do YOU cry. I got it correct but not im understanding the change here or is it an error?
- 270
- “Perché piangi” is correct.
- “Perché piange” is also correct
“piange” is a formal/polite form of you
- 347
The buttons available only allowed to answer "perché piange" and this was accepted as correct. But is wrong as it should say "perché piangi", right?
- 134
Why (voi) piangiate rather than piange? Is there any other reason to use voi other than to say "you all cry" ? Which sounds a little weird. Is it using the imperative?
- 270
No, it is not imperative
piangete (not piangiate)
these are correct:
- perché piangi
- perché piange
I think for ”perché piangiete” (which is grammatically correct) they would use something like ”why do you all cry”
