31 Comments
360
You can move around the words in a sentence if you want to stress something. In this case it's "le donne". "Poi le donne arrivano" is a plain statement with no stress.
Yes, but can't it change the meaning of the statement? Maybe to something like "Then they arrive (to) the women"?
That would be "poi arrivano dalle donne". Muttley is right, there is only a difference of emphasis, another way to reword the same sentence is "le donne arrivano poi".
Not sure of that. "Le donne arrivano poi" Wouldn't it be translated as: women arrive later... then = right after or at the time something takes place; later= undefined moment after the thing happened... similar but different.
f.formica, could you please explain why it can't be translated as "the women arrive later"? My italian friends says it's correct.. I would appreciate your help. Thanks
- 360
Please check the comments on this page. This question has already been answered :-)
- 360
You need to check the verb. "Arrivare" takes an indirect object (that is, it doesn't answer to the question "who/what" Ex: I eat an apple. I eat what? An apple.) That's why "le donne" can only be the subject in this sentence, even if it is not in its usual place :-)
Thanks, I'm still uncertain when it comes to prepositions, working on it though.
- 360
This is not the meaning of the sentence that would translate as "le donne arrivano [più] tardi" whereas here the meaning is that the women arrive after something has happened or someone has arrived.
I wish I could write "the ladies" instead of "the women". "The women" does sound a bit weird to me.
I can empathize with that. Where I come from it's extremely common to refer to your sons as boys e.g. 'hey how are you boys doing?' = I'm asking you how your two sons are ... So every time I translate figlio, I get into trouble because inevitably my brain translates figlio to son, but my mouth splurts out boy instead. Of course only son is correct, so I either have to break the habit somehow, or else continue to lose a heart.
- 360
"to come" = "venire". "To arrive" = "arrivare". While there are sentences avere "to come" may mean "to arrive", I'd stick to the translation.
- 360
A 'female human being' is also a woman. Yet the example sentence has donna which is 'woman' in English, not 'lady'
After the heated debate here, all I can say is that the most important thing is that the ladies (aka women) have arrived (have come), after all:)
The tense is wrong in this sentence when translated to English...it should say "Then the woman arrived"
