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- "Io ho un serpente nello stiv…
227 Comments
189
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'.
- 1625
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
why did i get it wrong if i said "in the boot" not "in my boot"? I thought Nello meant in the not in my???
I believe in Italian it depends on the circumstance, but by default it is the person's who "has" the snake. By saying "lei ha un serpente nello stivale," that would by default mean "she has a snake in her boot."
- 101
Agreed 100%. So, how would one say or write "I have a snake in the boot"? How is anyone supposed to know that " ...nello stivale" means in my boot and not"'in'the boot"? HELP.
- 136
It's implied because most of the time clothing that you are wearing belongs to you anyway. And even if you don't actually own the clothing, if you are wearing it still sort of belongs to you at the time. In English it seem logical to always say 'my boot', 'my t-shirt', but in Italian it seems logical that it is your clothing so you don't always need to say mio ect. This sentence implies a boot that you are wearing as you haven't specified it to be anything else. I think you would only really need to point out if it is not your boot, or not a boot that you are wearing. Personally, if there was a snake in the boot I was wearing I wouldn't worry about whose boot it was, I'd use the shortest sentence possible, lol!
- 357
It's annoying that it is implied while other times that I do not use an article it is not implied
"Io ho un serpente nel mio stivale" is what I would read. Since you are taking possession of the article being the boot.
- 93
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.
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.
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
- 1625
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
- 1645
From Jeffrey's list, useful to know that the genders are the same as in French, except for "stivale".
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.
- 1000
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.
why there is nello and not nel? nello zucchero (I know the reason but about stivale i don't)
- 18
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!
Say this in your best Australian accent. "There's a snake in my!!" Saying anything in an Aussie accent makes it sound so much better. Even when they say something mean it sounds nice like, "Go to hell cobber!" Say it an Australian accent and people will think your being friendly. I know cause I got one.
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..
- 1321
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.
I dont understand why Guoringo don't explain the reason nello was used int this sentence and answer shows my boot.
- 463
This is very confusing.... i thought "nello" means "in the".... how come it becomes "in my" without teaching it the first time.
So, I don't need the mio before stivale, because there is no other possible owner for the boot than me, rigth?
Am i the only one confused as in why it's "in my" instead of "in the"?
Ah yes the famous toy story line: "I have a shark in my snake" Dont duolingo at 11pm lads
I read the comments and still don't get it.. How come is it wrong to write "in the boot"?
But correct translate is-" I have a snake in boot". Why they don't accept this answer? It should be -"Io ho un serpente nel mio stivale" if translate is "in my boot".
Please read the other comments on this page. I and others have answered this numerous times.
what is going on here? it seems we all got it right but they haven't fixed this issue.
Google translates it as "the boot" not "my boot". It is not implied ,. DL is terribly inconsistent on this use of implied possessive adjectives
I would caution your use of Google translate, that site can be very inconsistent and though it can translate words, sentences often cause it problems as it does not understand all the rules.
Also,
The reason for this being implied is because of the fact that we use ho at the beginning which is in the "I/me" form. We follow that with Nello which is in the singular, if we used nel, then we would need to state "Mio" as nel is plural. As we used Nello, "Mio" becomes unnecessary and thus we don't use it. A sentence wouldn't make much sense if we said, "I have a snake in my my boot." Google translate cannot pick up on these little but important details.
Still not convinced as “nel” is not plural as you have stated above. “Nei” is plural
Nel is plural nello is singular. We used nello in this sentence meaning we are still talking about one person. Your comment above makes little sense, first, you say that I stated nel is not plural when I said the polar opposite. Then you contradict yourself by saying nel is plural. I don't care whether or not you are convinced, I am giving you the facts, it is your choice whether to follow and practice my advice.
This is not correct. English translayion requires my when iy wasnt in the initial sentence...
Nello means "in the". Where is here "my"? Why exactly "my" and not "your", "his" and so on?
- 71
Well here we go again ....poor language instruction...nello stivale...Duo says its in my boot..of course no direct instruction was provided but they say its implied..this is q non sequitur since this lesson is after possessive pronouns...or in this case they leave out mio...why not use a model where mio is omitted and then let the student learn then from deduction that mio is omitted. Or when these are inteoduced like this the DONT DELETE POINTS. I HAVE WRITTEN LANGUAGE TEXTBOOKS THAT HAVE SOLD MILLIONS ONLY BEVAUSE OF NEW EDITIONS CORRECTED MISTAKES OR IMPROVED THE INSTRUCTION FROM INPUT.
Based on the italian phrase The correct english translation should be "I have a snake in the boot".
No, your translation is wrong. I and others have answered this numerous times, please read through the other comments on this page.
This is wrong Because i think it has to be (io ho un serpente il miei stivale)
well, now there is the reason for having the knife in the boot as well...
