"The woman eats fried chicken."

Translation: La donna mangia il pollo fritto.

[islaitalia]

the sentence to be translated is ' she eats fried chicken'. In Italian it is 'she eats THE fried chicken' do we always use the article in Italian?

[StephieRice]

In cases where the sentence is definite. "She eats chicken" is "Lei mangia il pollo".

[gloriampowers]

What is the difference in fritte and fritto ?

[mario.a]

The difference would be as in "pollo fritto" (male, singular) and "patate fritte" (female, plural).

See: http://italian.about.com/library/weekly/aa072199a.htm

[gloriampowers]

Will the website you gave me show how to determine if a word is male or female ?

[Aaron.o]

nouns ending in "a" are always feminine. nouns ending in "o" are always masculine. nouns ending in "e" can be either, and must be memorized.

[CodeVisio]

Wrong.

Counter examples:

Il clima = (masculine word, it ends in -a) = The climate

La mano = (feminine word, it ends in -o) = The hand

References:

http://www.locuta.com/femm_o.html

http://www.locuta.com/masc_a.html

Summary: as a rule of thumb it is right, but there are exceptions. So your adverb 'always' is not correct.

I hope it helps

P.S Anyone knows how to format text comments here?

[marymaryboberry]

I like you, CodeVisio. You're blunt, but effective.

My friends, to add to this confusing non-rule, the plural of some irregular nouns is the opposite gender of the singular. Take "la mano," for example - the plural is "i mani." Memorize, memorize, memorize.

[CodeVisio]

Di you mean awkward and dull like a pig? ;) oink oink...

Singular----------Plural
La mano---------Le mani.

I like you ;)

[marymaryboberry]

Gah! Bested again.

[Mazzorano]

Joining the question of islaitalia: why isn't it: la donna mangia un pollo fritto?

[annzabaldo]

What I don't understand is why it is "pollo fritto" and not "il fritto al pollo" as in the construction "il gelato al cioccolato"

[AdrianaNaf]

Because gelato al cioccolato literally means chocolate ice cream the "al" is like saying ice cream "that has the flavor of" chocolate. When you say pollo grotto it is fried chicken but fritto al pollo would be fries with chicken flavour.

[EmilieRaine]

chocolate is a way to prepare ice cream, whereas chicken is not a ay to prepare fried. it could be a way to prepare fries though! anyone know the word for fries?

[rakalaw18]

So, pollo fritto is literally translated "chicken fried". So, every instance similar to this example is like this?

[EmilieRaine]

nofair! it doesnt give the article in english, so how do we know if it wants 'the' or 'a'?

[Kaens]

Whenever unsure, no article will work.