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- "Lei è conosciuta ovunque."
86 Comments
Is this really an example of passato prossimo (present perfect) or is this just the present tense of "to be" with an adjective? I'm not the strongest on grammar, hence the question, but I don't see why this is fundamentally different than "she is happy everywhere" (Lei è felice ovunque).
Aiuto!
Guys, this was very intentional. They're showing us that the adjective form of a verb is formed the same way as the present perfect tense. It's a brilliant idea to teach them in the same lesson.
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I think you give them too much credit. I think it is machine-generated. it fits the form. no good teacher would confuse the issue without explaining what the difference was. this is here by mistake. referencing remarks above, it's not a good strategy.
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It is great strategy for people who do not drawn in the language. If I were firm and selc confident enough, I would really appreciate it. On the other hand, I am hardly understanding essere/avere, gender (un)following etc., so I spent long time trying to translate it using past tense. I rejected the proper solution as not being a part of the lesson. Knowing that it was planned to inherit another grammer I admit that it is useful. However, I still think that the notice in the explanation part could be provided.
I have to agree with the notion of it being intentional. Remember, there is no teacher explaining all the rules. DL leaves you to ferret that out yourself through patterns and discussion. This is certainly them showing you ways the vocabulary is used. I've seen it over and over again.
Intentional? Really? Why was it not in the Tips section? I am trying my best to grasp the present perfect tense and have not mastered it. This only slows me down and makes me question what I am learning. Idiotic!
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I put "She was known everywhere " but on reflection this would be " lei era conosciuta ovunque"
I disagree. Lei era conciuta ovunque = she used to be known everywhere. Admittedly past participle of 'to know' in english is irregular, otherwise 'she was knowed everywhere' would be the past participle.
I think this great strategy because it prevents we make a mechanical translation.
- 1947
Yes, this is a great strategy, because it prevents us from making mechanical translation.
- 1055
Yes, I've noticed a lot of present passive constructions in the present perfect section. Very confusing when you have to guess the translations and you are used to using the name of the lesson to establish the context of the grammar! In English this is the same as the use of 'to be' with past participles as adjectives because we use 'to be' to make the passive voice, unlike in German (not sure of any other examples) where 'werden' (to become) is used.
You will often find off topic sentences in the units. I don't know if it is to keep us on our toes or just by chance. But be aware and beware.
It seems to usually function to show you that very similar-looking constructions can in fact translate quite differently. Here, it's probably going to show us lots of things related to verbal adjectives as these are the most confusing thing relating to present perfect for new learners.
I would take it as a present tense passive, which is what you said. The past participle "conosciuta" works as an adjective.
Thanks. I think it would be better to put this sentence in a different section then, as there is enough to be tackling just with past tense!
it works within the same rules as "passato prossimo" but it's easy to spot because it's a transitive verb (which usually take Avere) and then conjugated with essere
Easy for you. I was never taught grammar in school, so I don't understand what you are saying.
Look up Present Perfect Simple (have/has + past participle, eg he has seen) and the Passive Voice (am/is/are + past participle eg he is seen). I love Duolingo, but it was not set up by applied linguists.
How would it be easy to spot if the tips don't give any examples of this?! I am not a linguist.
That would be "Si è conosciuta ovunque." "Si conosce" would be the present tense, equivalent to "è conosciuta." "She was known" could also be "era conosciuta" or "è stata conosciuta."
è conosciuta means is (present) known, and in this sentence "conosciuto/a" is an adverb. This is a wake-up-trap from DL! Lei era conosciuta =she was known (once upon a time).
Why does "You" (formal) not work here...? I keep getting these wrong for this reason and it seems inconsistent to say sometimes You (formal) works, and sometimes it doesn't.
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It woul require DL to put that possible answer every time "lei" is used. As someone who has learned Italian in the past, it has surprised me - having worked through the DL course step by step - that "You"(formal) has not actually been taught yet in this course. So I haven't yet offered it as an answer!
because conoscere is a transitive verb, therefor it usually takes avere rather than essere. so when you use essere with a verb that uses avere, that's the passive voice. read more: http://tutorino.ca/grammatica/2007/7/17/the-italian-passive-voice-la-voce-passiva.html
Thankyou for your contribution. "Passive voice" in Italian must be different than in English. Passive voice example in english "The cake is placed in the oven for 60 minutes". As opposed to, "I placed the cake in the oven for 60 minutes".
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Everywhere as in she knows the location well? I would imagine that there would be an article in between, after ovunque. Like di, a, al?
The grammarbsays that this example is PASSIVE VOICE. The translations to English do not correspond to PRESENT PERFECT at all!
Surely the words in this section are the same as our past participle in English
Pretty much, both languages have an adjective form of the verb that expresses the state of having done (for intransitive) or undergone (for transitive) the action of the verb. The difference (from what I understand so far) is that English forms an (active) past tense with "have" + past participle and (for transitive) a passive present tense with "be" + pp, where Italian does the same except that it forms an active past tense with "be" (instead of "have") + pp for intransitive verbs. (English has some possible remnants of this, like "He is gone.")
Thank you , that clarifies it ! I am certain that with a lot more practise this old brain will master it ...
Right. Slap a passive sentence in the middle of a lesson about the present perfect, just to confuse people. Talk about cognitive overload!
So... i've spent the past while trying to figure out when present perfect conjugates the second verb so it ends in -ato/-ito/-uto, and when it conjugates it to end in -a or -i.
My read of the commentary below is that present perfect always conjugates the second verb so it ends in -o, and the confusion is just because some of the verbs in this lesson are actually passive (taking "essere"), and the conjugation of the second verb after "essere" is different from the conjugation after "avere". But i'd love confirmation of that! If it's true, what are the rules when using "essere"?
The past participle conjugated with essere has four possible endings,depending on the gender and number of its subject.
Generally, when avere is the auxiliary verb, the past participle always ends in -o regardless of the subject of the verb. There are exceptions to this when avere is preceded by a direct object.
Isn't this 'conosciuta' just a plain adjective, answering to the question: "WHAT is she?"
Participles are verbal adjectives (i.e., adjectives formed from verbs). Past participles show completed actions (e.g., the washed clothes). Perhaps by "plain" adjectives you mean adjectives not formed from other parts of speech (e.g., colors or numbers).
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At first I thought this could also mean, "He/She met her everywhere" - but no, that would have to be, "L'ha conosciuta ovunque" - right?
couldn't this be imperfeto? Imperfeto implies an ongoing action "Lei Conosceva ovunque" would mean "is known", right?
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The "known in" and "he":
He is known in England.=Egli/Lui è conosciuto in Inghilterra.
He is known in London.= Egli/Lui è conosciuto a Londra.
How is ovunque pronounced? Que, in general, seems to be pronounced "qwe". In this case, DL seems to say ovun-k rather than "qwe".
OK after reading everyones comments I am just as confused. I am hoping I will pick it up intuitively after a while!
Thanks to duolingo, I have forgotten english grammer now :D present perfect, passive, past... Confusing!
Is it just me or does it seem like so much of the "practice" in the lessons at this level (I mean after the beginner levels) consist of mainly throwing irregularities, exceptions, and idiomatic uses at you instead of first giving you ample time to practice and solidify the actual material on a simple level first?
I couldn't agree more. I'm almost finished with the complete course, with >50.000 XP in Italian and as of today only seven more skills to go. The further down the "tree" I've come, the weirder the exercices have become. I feel I'm no longer being taught basic, useful stuff for an everyday life in Italy, as more effort is put into constructing sentences that are so out of this world that you'll probably never use any of them.
You do in fact need to know only three verb forms to get by really well in Italian:
the present (io vado, I go, I am going),
the near past (io sono andato, I went, I have gone)
and the imperfect (io cantavo, I sang, I used to sing, I was singing).
I'd really love to learn much more words instead, to improve my possibilities to express myself and enable me to understand written and spoken Italian even more.
But as so many have pointed out before, this is a free course and hence there isn't room for much criticism. I'll just finish the course and move on to somewhere else. All in all I'm grateful for what Duolingo has taught me. I just did an on-line diagnostic test called Dialang at the University of Lancaster and did pretty well, taking into consideration I've started from scratch: level A2 on words and B1 on comprehension of texts.
(Sorry for any mistakes here. My mothertongue is Swedish, not English.)
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I am not sure what is going on with many of the comments at the start of this discussion that suggest the sentence is in the passive voice. The verb use is the reflexive verb 'conoscersi' and the sentence is conjugated with essere.
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The verb used here is "conoscere", not "conoscersi", so this is a passive sentence.
Passive - "is known", active - "knows" and "is knowing". If it were "conoscersi" you would have "si" before the main verb, which you don't have.
I answered exactly right, and it came back as a wrong answer. And it's not the first time this happens to me...
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How do we know this? Copy/paste your sentence if you want to get a comment or an explanation
is this part related to passive sentences, if so i advise to delete the other part
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If intentional, Duo is using extremely poor teaching strategy. Not providing context or unateuction sets students up for failure. It's simply poor teaching.
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My answer "She's known everywhere" should have been correct as she's and she is means the same thing!
