137 Comments
No it's not. If you want to use mio then you cannot use nello as it preceed the nouns starting with 's or z'.
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One must be careful about this rule: It applies to words beginning with vowels, etc. Thus, even if a masculine noun begins with a vowel, if it is preceded by an adjective which begins with, say, an n, then you'd use il instead of lo.
lo stivale but il nuovo stivale.
The presence of mio thus removes the necessity of using lo, and nel mio stivale would be correct, grammatically, as it is actually in il mio stivale.
But then, as MadelynWrit points out, you don't need mio - but then without the mio you have to use nello, so it's either:
nel mio stivale or nello stivale
"Io ho un serpente nel mio stivale" is what I would read. Since you are taking possession of the article being the boot.
In Australian English this could mean that you have a snake in the back of your car. Boot = trunk (in American English).
Not quite. The boot of a car, or trunk for the Americans, is "Bagagliaio".
"Stivali" specifically means footwear boots.
So you don't need "my" before boot? Because this is literally I have snake in boot...would "Io ho un serpente nel mio stivale" also be okay?
In Italian you use possessive adjective before clothes only if it is necessary "I'm wearing the jacket" (not MY jacket) but "I'm wearing your jacket"
Great reference, Duolingo. I forgive you for half the hearts I lost because of trivial things.
I said snake on the boot and it was wrong. but 'nel piatto' means on the plate?
In italian you say nel piatto: it is literally "in the plate" but in English you use "on the plate" more often. Perhaps the plates tend to be deeper in Italy :)
but that doesn't answer why it would not be "ON the boot" compared to "IN the boot" because you can have things on your shoes that are not inside your shoes. Sometimes I have mud or a bug ON my shoes but not IN my shoes (thank god). Semantically, could both IN and ON have been correct in this boot case? If not, how would you say "I have a snake ON my boot" ?
When you're learning a foreign language, you just have to accept that prepositions won't make much sense to you in the other language. They don't translate well if you're just trying to find one equivalent word. Instead, you always have to think of them as part of a phrase and memorize them that way.
correct!
two good and easy charts for prepositions
I had the same problem. The final "e" is feminine as a plural but masculine as a single unless it's feminine, like "l'ape" at which point I run screaming into the street. Genders are killing me. I guess I just have to memorize the gender of words with ambiguous endings.
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That's why you have the article. "nello"= "in + lo", that is the article for nouns of the masculine gender (why "lo stivale" is masculine and "la scarpa"is feminine is beyond the scope of this course :-) ). Therefore the word following it must also be masculine.
Or how dress is masculine (il vestito).... or "skirt" in German is masculine (der Rock). Probably an interesting story somewhere about how these words got assigned their genders.
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I've been collecting e words in a list of feminine or masculine. Here's what I've collected so far:
Feminine
ape bee
arte art
attrice actress
automobile car
febbre fever
luce light
notte night
patente license
prigione prison, jail
regione region
stazione station
tigre tiger
Masculine
attore actor
balcone balcony
bicchiere glass
caffè coffee
cameriere waiter
cortile courtyard
costume costume, suit, bathing suit
dolce dessert, sweet
elefante elephant
giornale newspaper
ingrediente Ingredient
leone lion
limone lemon
maglione sweater
maiale pork
pepe pepper
ristorante restaurant
sale salt
sapone soap
serpente snake
stivale boot
studente student
tè tea
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From Jeffrey's list, useful to know that the genders are the same as in French, except for "stivale".
Do not understand this, as far as I concerned, it does not say my boot, it says the boot. Surely it should state whose boot it is...clearly... in any language.
What is the difference between "nello" and "nel"? Why here it says "nello" and not "nel"?
The difference between and nello and nel is the same as la/il and lo. Use the one that ends in o for words that start with s+consonant and z+consonant. Il piatto would be nel piatto. Lo zucchero would be nello zucchero. Etc. It took me a little bit to realize that as well because it isn't very well explained, but if you know which "the" to use then you'll also know which "in the" and "on the" to use.
These are called "prepositional articles" because they combine a preposition and and article together. There is a nice chart showing the different forms at http://italian.about.com/library/fare/blfare153a.htm
It seems that in Italian, you don't use the possessive article with the clothing that you are wearing. But, in English, we do.
why "i have a snake in boot" doesnt work? where is the word "my" hiding in the question?
Partly because "nello" means "in the" and not just "in". So you at least need the "the" to make a coherent English sentence. But as a previous commentor said, the "my" is implied because Italian doesn't use possessives for clothing unless you're specifying whose item it is. If there is no possessive it is accepted that you're talking about your own item.
So, can it be "Io ho un serpente nel mio stivale," if you're trying to be completely clear?
is this a "saying" meaning "my boot is uncomfortable" ? otherwise am hoping not to have to use this interesting collection of words..
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I've read all the comments and I am still unclear. "I have a snake in the boot" was wrong. It seems that if the possesive is implied, then it would make sense if both 'my' and 'the' were accepted. 5 May 2018
I only started Italian a few months ago and I am finding the lack of personal pronouns and possessives difficult to grasp. This I translated as ...in the boot, which was accepted. The implication was that it was the speaker's boot, but I have found Duo gets a bit touchy if you put in words that are not actually there.
This is what I had io ho... The first time I saw it and it was marked incorrectly Does Duolingo make lots of errors
You marked this incorrect on me the first time I used io ho... So please don't confuse the lesson
I can tell I am a beginner in learning Italian. Or have forgotten much of my english grammer after reading this conversation on lo versis il mio. Dale
WC Fields always had a bottle of whisky nearby - in case he got bitten by a snake. He always had a snake handy as well.
Io ho un serpent nello stivale = I have a snake in the boot. Io ho un serpent nel mio stivale. = I have a snake in my boot.
why there is nello and not nel? nello zucchero (I know the reason but about stivale i don't)
Because it's lo stivale : in+ lo= nello. The males nouns when begin from st,sn,sd,sp,sm,z take the article lo not il!
well, now there is the reason for having the knife in the boot as well...
