"I ragazzi mangiano il pane."
Translation:The boys eat bread.
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Il ragazzo - i ragazzi
L'astuccio - gli astucci
All these articles mean THE and are used for italian masculine words. IL is singular, used when the following word begins with a consonant.
L' is also singular (masculine AND feminine!) but used with words beginning with a vowel.
When making the plurals "IL" becomes "i" and "L'" becomes "GLI" (in masculine words!!! With feminine words L' becomes LE)
Hope this helps!
That's what I thought. I was tasked with translating "I ragazzi mangiano il pane" into English. I translated it as "The boys eat the bread"
However, I was marked as wrong. With the answer being: "The children eat the bread".
So to be clear:
If you know the group of children are all boys; you say "I ragazzi".
If you know the group of children are all girls; you say "Le ragazze".
If you don't know either way; you say "I ragazzi".
It's a language grammar difference. For example, in French, they refer to countries using 'the.' La France (The France). But in English, we just say France. Same thing here, with foods like bread and fish, Italian uses 'the', but it's usually not necessary in English, unless it's a specific fish or piece of bread.
Hi london622 - I think I've got it now! Il is the singular masculine definite article therefore it would be il ragazzo - ragazzo = boy. Changing the o to I at the end makes it boys - ragazzi - therefore you have to change the singular masculine definitive article into the plural one - from il to I. For the girl it would be la ragazza, for the girls it would be le ragazze. Hope that helps.