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Sometimes in the Spanish from English tree, DL has some "Tips and Notes" content available that gives a few paragraphs of explanation for somewhat complex topics like this - the difference between the "avere" and the "essere" forms of this tense is different enough from English that DL's "soak it up until it makes sense" approach is especially confusing. So I wish that DL would have a "Tips and Notes" page on some of these confusing Italian pages.
Mrobien, I totally agree, especially now that we are learning a tense beyond the present tense.
Although I just noticed how old these comments are. I assume then that there wasn't one at the time
not related or anything but.... 544D i tried to wipe off that splat in ur pic thinking it was a dirt in my schermo/screen -_-
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Hahaha. It's the Comedian badge from the Watchmen http://watchmen.wikia.com/wiki/Comedian%27s_badge
How do you know this is past tense "She came alone" instead of "she is coming alone", other than the fact the section is about the past? What in the sentence lets you know this? The dictionary hint for venuta is "coming".
"She is coming alone" - is a Present Continuous, not the Present Perfect. And there is no fact that this section is about the past, if we are talking about the sentence "She is coming alone". Because that is Present Continuous and it can also indicate that something will happen in the near future. The other time, Present Perfect, is used when trying to describe the action that happened at an unspecified time before now. And your question, what in the sentence lets you know it? Well, it's kinda easy. See how the verbs have the same endings, venuto uta/uto, parlato /ato, provato /ato, costruito /ito. You can see how they are all similar one to each other. And only that TENSE in Italian has that kind of suffix in combination with two verbs: AVERE or ESSERE. I hope I helped you at least a bit :)
You need to know that "venuta, venuto, etc." is the past participle of "venire" and that the auxiliary verb that goes with that is "essere", so that "è venuta" means "she has come" or "she came". http://italian.about.com/library/verb/blverb_venire.htm
Yes, for English speakers learning Italian, it might be more helpful for this section to be titled "Passato prossimo" instead of "Present perfect". Then we could avoid setting up the unhelpful expectation that these are all going to correspond neatly to the English "Present perfect"! Duolingo really needs better notes on this section. I found the explanation on this page much easier to understand than what Duolingo has: https://onlineitalianclub.com/free-italian-exercises-and-resources/online-italian-course-beginner-level-a1/italian-grammar-passato-prossimo-near-past-tense/
The present would be Lei viene da sola. Venuta is the past participle. I can't explain the dictionary hint.
I also can't explain why the conjugation table(within the hint) is still in the indicative mood. If anyone wants, just use this website: http://www.italian-verbs.com/italian-verbs/conjugation.php?verbo=venire
Any idea how one would say "she is coming alone" in Italian? "Lei viene da sola" is something I'd translate to "she comes alone", not particularly "She is coming alone"
If you want to emphasize the doing of the thing, you can use the form essere plus gerund. In this case, it would be lei è venendo (she is coming) instead of lei viene (she comes).
Just for reference, in case someone find a grammar explnation useful, as opposed to the slowly gros a feeling approach duolingo so love to ude
http://www.oneworlditaliano.com/english/italian-grammar/italian-perfect-tense.htm
Lei ha bevuto, lei è venuta - is this a general rule? (I mean, does the participle have O/A after essere and constant O after habere?)
Generally, when the verb takes a direct object (i.e., it's transitive) you use avere as the auxiliary, and when intransitive you use essere. If essere, the past participle agrees in gender and number with the subject. But see Viaggiatore's comment below: even with avere, the pp agrees with the direct object.
The word is "avere". (Are you a Latin student?) Generally yes, but at times you have the varying ending with "avere" also, especially when the previous word is a form of "lo". Thus "l'ho vista (a contraction of "la ho vista") means "I saw her."
I see. Thanks. (Yes, Latin was my first Roman language - sometimes leads me to this kind of confusion)
[QUESTION]
I just want to clarify my understanding, is it similar with "l'ho visto"?
I guess Duolingo confuses the Present Perfect and the Simple Past. I just don't understand the logic of the "solutions". For this sentence, I wrote: She has arrived alone, and it marked wrong. But IMHO "é venuta" IS Present Perfect. The "solution" She came alone is NOT Pres. Perf. at all. On the other hand, I have had some hints that refer to Pres. Perf. and others that refer to Simple Past and vice versa and... Just don’t make sense.
Wow! That's interesting! I had to repeat the exercise and the second time I wrote 'She has come alone'. This was accepted! Last time this was incorrect. That's why I say don't make a sense to me. ;)
Duo's hints are hit and miss sometimes, especially as you go farther up the tree. I highly recommend having a tab open with http://www.wordreference.com/iten and http://www.wordreference.com/conj/ItVerbs.aspx for actual definitions and conjugations.
That's exactly how I do it, along with a prior reading of the two pages of rules about forming past participles in my Italian grammar book. Three minutes of my time and I have seen all the rules before I even begin a new section.
That's how I do it also, with wordreference open, a very trustworthy resource! One of these days, I'll get around to buying a couple of reliable grammar books too!
'She has come alone' was accepted. The verb here meant 'to come'.
It's also important to note that in English, we could translate it either into simple past or present perfect because the Italians can use present perfect in ways in which we don't.
I'm with you there, hunyadfalviz. I also tried "She has arrived alone," and the system inexplicably rejected it. I also agree with your tense analysis. We was robbed! Have a lingot.
Yes, for English speakers learning Italian, it might be more helpful for this section to be titled "Passato prossimo" instead of "Present perfect". Then we could avoid setting up the unhelpful expectation that these are all going to correspond neatly to the English "Present perfect"! Duolingo really needs better notes on this section. I found the explanation on this page much easier to understand than what Duolingo has: https://onlineitalianclub.com/free-italian-exercises-and-resources/online-italian-course-beginner-level-a1/italian-grammar-passato-prossimo-near-past-tense/
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There are some comments about "venuta" not meaning "coming". There exists the Italian noun "venuta" which means "arrival, coming" The fault is that the DL word tips do not take account of the role of the word in the sentence and assigns the meaning as a noun when it is actually a past participle. One of the little idiosyncrasies of DL.
first three sentences are different from each other. 1- present perfect 2-s. present passive 3-simple past Which one is correct?
This is "present perfect" which is used for the recent past or a past that continues to affect the present, but in English we can often use the "simple past" in place of any past tense though it is less specific. It should be "She has come..." or "She came..." as "She is come..." is an archaic form that is no longer used for the present perfect, probably because we use the passive forms so much in English.
Picture the difference between "The food is eaten." vs. "She has eaten the food." Someone might translate literally and erroneously get the passive form in English. Currently, "She is come..." would mean that she didn't come herself but she is here because some unknown method of transportation or friend brought her here. Others would argue that for this particular verb, it would not matter since "she came" no matter how. So it could perhaps be interpreted by some people as being the same. This is exactly the type of information that is lost when you don't use "She has come..." which focuses on "she" being the one who came. We still don't know how she came. She still could have taken the bus or come with a friend, but she is viewed as actively having taken the actions to come.
In Italian, although it is supposed to be used like the Present Perfect, speakers often use it instead of the Passato Remoto which would definitely be replaced with the simple past. Scroll down here for the Tips and Notes: https://www.duolingo.com/skill/it/Verbs%3A-Present-Perfect
I think it is independent: Duolingo is based on us and our responses - when a response is used by the majority it becomes the correct response, which is why our feedback and challenges for acceptable responses are so important. As a crowd-(re)source, we are improving translations
In Italian the "gerund" is usually expressed as "ando" or "endo". Ando for "are" verbs and "endo" for "ere" and "ire" verbs. So, venendo = "coming"
It is not completely wrong. There is the noun "venuta" which is "coming" or "arrival" and there is the past participle "venuta" or "venuto" which is used to make the Passato Prossimo, or present perfect tense in English. "She has come..." which of course we can also say with the simple past "She came..." This verb "venire" uses "essere" instead of "avere" for its auxiliary verb. "Lei è venuta..."
Scroll down for all the information: http://dictionary.reverso.net/italian-english/venuta
http://www.italian-verbs.com/italian-verbs/conjugation.php?verbo=venire
Do not rely on Google Translate as it is very much "hit or miss". Other references given on this page are superior.
I mostly get the distinction between "avere" and "essere". And I notice that "avere" is also used when the subject has or hasn't completed an action - Abbiamo finito - We have finished. Non abbiamo mai parlato - We have never spoken. ............ Would someone care to confirm this? Grazie!
No, that is not the distinction between "avere" and "essere". Some verbs simply use "essere" instead of "avere" for the same purpose of creating tenses. Transitive verbs use "avere". Reflexive verbs use "essere". Intransitive verbs can use either. Verbs of motion such as "come" and "go" use "essere". This is still translated as "She has come..." even though the verb "to be" is used for the auxiliary in Italian instead of "to have". I just look them up here:
http://www.italian-verbs.com/italian-verbs/conjugation.php?parola=venire
I think the translation for this would be: She has come alone. Most of the sentences in this section seem to be in the Present Perfect Tense and not in the Simple Past as they are translated.
what the diference between: She's come alone -- She is come alone. The second is not accept
The second is not grammatically correct in English. We use HAS for present perfect in all cases, never IS. Either this sentence could be 'she has come alone' or simply 'she came alone', since Italians use present perfect to talk about times which we would consider to fit with both present perfect and simple past.
'is come' would have been correct pre 1900. This shares the same root as German 'ist gekommen' or Dutch 'is gekomen'. At some stage, people stopped using two perfect auxilliaries and have since stuck with just 'have'. (Example: Joy to the world, the Lord IS come.)
'She is come alone' - wrong
But 'She's come alone' - right
Is not it the same thing?
