"Actually, they are right."
Translation:Effettivamente loro hanno ragione.
83 CommentsThis discussion is locked.
That's the expression: avere ragione means being right and avere torto means being wrong.
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Having a reason does not of course imply correctness. So, how would one write "to have a reason" without meaning "to be right"?
I think that's more like saying fair/just than saying something is right /correct (in which you'd use avere ragione). I could be wrong though!
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Never heard this (which doesn't mean much), but I'd understand it to mean that they are of a "correct" character. Like they cannot be bribed.
If you think about it, the English "being" right is odd because having a correct opinion about something isn't a state. You could be right and wrong at the same time! (About different matters).
As far as I can tell from Reverso Context you use avere ragione to refer to a person being right but sono giusti for non-human things such calculations, suspicions, methods etc. Here are some examples of using sono giusti to mean "are right" (none refers to people):
http://context.reverso.net/traduction/italien-anglais/sono+giusti
And here are some examples of hanno ragione meaning "(they) are right" (most refer to people and those that don't are actually using the inanimate object to refer to the people who are responsible for it e.g a country, book etc)
http://context.reverso.net/traduction/italien-anglais/hanno+ragione#are+right
Yes, I would love a native speaker to comment - I understand 'avere ragione', but is the above actually incorrect? Or just not used? Or has DL missed a valid sentence?
The sentence reads "actually", NOT "in fact", and it should be acceptable as a translation for "actually"
This was just presented to me (March 2015) as one of the multiple choice answers - and marked wrong.
April 2020, still not accepted. Frustrating, these nuances in adverbs, without context...
Errore!! Veramente is "truly" NOT "ACTUALLY"!! I put " attualmente " which is "actually" and got it wrong!!
"Attualmente" is a false friend. It doesn't mean "actually" but "currently" (as in "at the present time"). When I was in Italy I had to correct myself constantly over this! "Effettivamente" is a good translation for our English word "actually". I used "in realtà" a lot in Italy too, but I feel like "effettivamente" is slightly more literal.
I used "In realità" as a translation for "actually" (like the suggestion told me) and I got it wrong :(
It's the same in French by the way (ils ont raison),and we also have the same expression in German (sie haben Recht)
"Giusto" is used to describe things, not people. A sentence can be "giusto" or "sbagliato": "Questa frase non è giusta, bensi è sbagliata."
But the person who spoke the sentence can "avere ragione" or not (avere torto): "Sì, hai ragione. Ho torto. Ho fatto un errore quì."
"Hanno ragione" is the general way to express "They are right" in Italian. If you did use "essere", you would have to say "sono giusti" to make it grammatically correct, but I believe that has more the sense of "They are just".
Thank you for someone finally telling us that "hanno ragione" means "they are right" in Italian. It's nust one more of those sentences i have to memorize.
I put infatti as well. According to the Zingarelli dictionary, infatti is a conjunction that is used to introduce a subordinate clause. This implies that it cannot be used standalone with a single main clause. This sounds plausible to me as an explanation.
"veramente" should also be accepted as a correct translation of "actually."
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I think 'actually' is tricky to translate. I'm not an English native speaker and it translate into different words in German and it's the same for English... I thought 'progriamente' might be it, but alas...
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Duo rejected "hanno ragioni" Said I used plural instead of singular. Isn't hanno (they) plural? Or is avere ragione an expression that does not match number.
It's because you used the plural of "ragione". It should be "Hanno ragione". You don't need to make ragione plural here.
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The word 'right' in English has different meanings, and these are translated using different Italian words. Ragione and diritto, for the meanings in this discussion (though there are many more). "to be right" is "avere ragione" (literally, to have reason) "to have rights" is "avere diritti" So, if talking about a persons rights, you could say - 'Ci sono i nostri diritti..' (They are our rights"), or '(Loro) hanno diritti.' (They have rights.), but you would not use 'ragione' to express this use of the word 'right'. Furthermore, you would not use the verb 'essere' with 'ragione' to express that a person is (in the) right, though you could use 'essere nel giusto' (to be in the right). I hope this is more clear than mud. -Richard
Because it only agrees in number and gender if you use essere not avere, and you are right basically literally translates to 'you have right' or you have correctness. It's not the way English does things, but because it does use that auxiliary verb ragione stays singular in situations like this.
I don't know why 'anzi' isn't accepted. In english you use actually to clarify or correct someone so it sometimes means 'on the contrary' so i think anzi is a correct translation of actually
Infatti is not the same as effettivamente. Infatti means "as matter of facts", or "in fact", but the meaning is narrower in Italian than in English, and doesn't cover the effettivamente. When I've learnt English it gave me lots of headaches to accept that English tends to smear the differences between small details like this, what both Italian and my (Hungarian) language are keen to express. :) For the other way, perhaps it is even harder :)
Nothing. It's not literal enough by DL standards, but it's not an error. It should be reported.
I learned somewhere that the phrase " A dire il vero" is the correct way to say this, as in "A dire il vero, hanno ragione"
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That's interesting. The Word Reference dictionary also has a onor del vero, a dire la verità, per la verità as equivalents for a dire il vero.
Can someone confirm whether these two things really mean the same? "Have reason" - isn't this different to being "correct".
Calbr: That would mean they are sure, but not necessarily right. Sono certo would mean that I think I am right, but it is not confirmed. ho raggione means that I am right and it is confirmed (by the facts, by experience, whatever).
Curlygirly: It may be true for the English (though I think it is not so similar) but definitely not true for Italian (and a bounch of other languages). Avere raggione is not "have reason" (that would be avere un motivo ) but "being right" (or correct, but that may mean other things, too. like acting the correct way, etc.)
IMHO. But I am not native in any of the two languages. :)
giusti' should be accepted. Its meaning is translated in my italian dictionary as 'right' as the first meaning and 'just' as in fair, as the second meaning.
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What is "atualmente" if not actually? Duo wants me to use "veramente" which surely means really or truly, no?
Previous lesson we couldn't use 'loro' for 'they'. Next lesson, DL says 'loro' is 'they'. Please, can any native speaker explain this? Thanks!
I wrote "infatto" and duolingo suggested "di fatto" instead. Can anyone explain the difference and when to use each? Thank you!
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JeannieCapp: I think "infatto" means "in fact" whereas "di fatto" (as an adverb) means "in effect" whether by right, or not, and, as an adjective, "existing" or "actual" (A de facto one-party system).
