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- "Ci avevo pensato tante volte…
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404
I had thought about us = Avevo pensato a noi. In this case the verb is not Pensare but...Pensarci a pronomial verb meaning to think about it or to take care of it. Ci penso = I think about it. Ci penso io. = I'll take care of it/sort it out. Note you must include the personal pronoun for this meaning. Ci pensano = They think about it. Ci pensano loro. = They'll take care of it/sort it out.
782
Not necessarily, 'ci' is the weak form of the indirect object pronoun whereas, 'a noi' or 'per noi' is the strong form. They occupy different places in a sentence 'ci' being close to the verb as in the example.
I did the same - it looks like it's the verb "pensare" that is causing the problem... my book says that "ci" is sometimes used to mean "it" or "about it" with certain verbs... one of those being pensare (also capire, credere?). It says that it is used when the verb would normally take "a" after it - so that's pensare again.
My question is therefore, how do you say "i had thought about them?"
206
This is why grammar is so important. Ci and ne are used for indirect cases. Something we haven't learned so far in DL.
490
Thanks, it is quite nice explanation :) Still i'm not sure if i can distinguish the indirect from direct pronoun ans so on....
It's not so hard to understand.
Verbs without a preposition need the direct object pronoun
-
aspettare qualcuno/qualcosa
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aiutare qualcuno
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ringraziare qualcuno (la ringrazio)
Verbs with a preposition (normally a, di) need the indirect object pronoun
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scrivere a qualcuno (le scrivo)
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occuparsi di qualcosa/qualcuno
There are also some verbs that can have both:
- consigliare qualcosa a qualcuno (te lo consiglio)
257
me too - "think OVER that" given as correct instead = not fluent English, surely ? Reported.
617
I also don't understand why "ci" here cannot refer to "us" rather than "it". Reading comments below confirms my confusion.
I don't know why either, but I did a search on the sentence to see how Italian speakers used it in context. And the context always indicated that ci meant "it" rather than "us."
"Io le risposi che ci avevo pensato molte volte, ma da sola non era facile" (I told her that I had thought about it many times, but it was not easy on my own)
"Guarda, io sono sempre stato molto vicino alla chiesa, fin da quando ero bambino. ci avevo pensato molte volte" (Look, I've always been very close to the church since I was a child. I had thought about it many times)
"lol all'idea di un remake ci avevo pensato molte volte molto molto tempo fà." ( lol to the idea of a remake I had thought about it many times a long long time ago)
318
Italian verbs take many forms. 'andare'--to go, 'andarsene'--to go away; 'chiedere'--to ask, 'chiedersi'--to wonder; 'mangiare'--to eat, 'mangiarsi--to be enraged. 'pensare--to think, 'pensarci'--to consider something. this would be equivalent of 'pensare+the preposition 'a'+a noun (sto pensando alla vacance. ci sto pensando) having written all of this it's not clear to me that ci can't mean 'us'. the only reason that comes to mind is the highly idiomatic meaning of 'pensarci'--to consider it or to take care of it. here are two sites that answer this issue. http://www.dummies.com/languages/italian/conjugating-italian-verbs-with-ci/ and https://blogs.transparent.com/italian/tricky-little-words-%E2%80%9Cci%E2%80%9D/