"He tells her that it is impossible."
Translation:Lui le dice che è impossibile.
31 Comments
Yes, but you need an indirect object pronoun here, which is "le.". He says to her that...
10
The sentence does not say "he says to her", it says "he tells her". Same thing to you, but for beginners this is just plain annoying. If Duo used "he says to her", then fewer people would complain and more people would understand. What a concept!
What we need is a list of Italian verbs that use indirect pronouns that also have the word "to" or "for" implied but not written. Because sometimes "dire" is "tells" and sometimes it is "says". Sometimes "parla" is "talks" and sometimes it is "speaks". Etc.
Sadly, it seems that memorizing that verb list would be the only way to get it straight, since looking for visual cues-- like the word "to" in a sentence-- is not going to happen on these exercises.
It is not the Italian so much that is a problem here, but, as you point out, the (presence/absence of) implied prepositions. We omit them in English and the word does not change, but, since the Italian uses different cases, it makes a difference. Try the simple sentence: He tells her lies. A verb cannot have two direct objects in English; "lies" is the direct object of the verb "tells". We can rewrite the sentence: He tells lies to her. If you can correctly add "to" in such a case, then you know it is an INdirect object. In Italian, the sentence would be: Lui le dice bugie (He tells her lies.) But Italian can also express the preposition by saying, "Lui dice bugie a lei" (He tells lies to her.) "Her" is the indirect object in both cases, just expressed differently. Hope I didn't make this more confusing than it needs to be...
You're right...there are some verbs that take a direct pronoun in English, but an indirect pronoun in Italian. I do just try to memorize them as I come across them. Here's my list so far if it helps: chiedere/domandare, consigliare, dare, dire, insegnare, interessare, mandare, mostrare, offrire, portare, prestare, regalare, restituire, rispondere, spedire, scrivere, spiegare, telefonare
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Why do we need an indirect object pronoun, such a thing even sounds like it is completely unnecessary to have in a language.
object direct ( ask for complement)- io- mi , tu -ti, lui- lo, lei -la, noi-ci , voi-vi , loro masculine - li, loro feminine- le. ( ti amo, la amo, lo amo ) object indirect (don't ask for complement) io- mi, tu - ti, lui-gli- lei- le, noi´- ci, voi- vi, loro- gli. ( le piace la frutta) to me,, to you ... -- per me, per te
I don't agree with this (Portuguese) site about "glie" (This is better: http://italian.about.com/library/fare/blfare168a.htm) and anyway it doesn't say anything like "per ce" and "per ve".
Think of it as 'He told [something] to her'. Unfortunately in english we're just as likely 'to tell (someone) (something)' and avoid any notion of 'to'. Possibly we're too sloppy for our own good with english grammar!
This is a rubbish lesson. They dump us straight in to the tricky subject of Italian pronouns mixing both direct and indirect together without giving any clues. This is where the usefulness of Duolingo runs out for me.
"la" is the direct object; "le" the indirect. For example, "Lui la porta dentro la casa" - he brings (carries) her into the house. But, "Lui le porta la collazione" = He brings [to] her breakfast or He brings breakfast to her. The problem may be the word "dice" because it may sound like it takes a direct object, but "he" is in fact telling it TO her. Hope this helps a little...
This whole section is full of drama, l'amo, io non l'amo... now he tells her it's impossible... it's a whole soap opera! :-)
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'La' was used for 'her' in a different sentence in this lesson not its 'le:, makes no sense why Duo Lingo would confuse us like this. No consistency but it guess you get what you pay for, ie get ❤❤❤❤ for free.
Close but no cigar. When dealing with pronouns 'la' is 'her', but 'le' is 'to her'; it's the difference between direct and indirect.
È - he/she/it is; sia - both. He tells her both impossible? Guess I'm not understanding your question, can you re-word it?
I guess Sytske123 was referring to the conguintivo/indirect speech. Same question here, "le dice che sia impossibile" should be accepted. I reported.
The problem with sentences like these it takes you half an hour to figure out how to construct it!
