"I have been waiting since August."
Translation:Aspetto da agosto.
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From "A Reference Grammar of Modern Italian": "In Italian (as in many other European languages) the form of the verb used expresses the fact that the action 'overlaps' a point of time in the present, that it is still going on. In other words, in such constructions Italian uses a present tense form: Vive a Parigi da anni ( he has lived in Paris for years); Luigi canta ormai da tre ore (Luigi has been singing now for three hours) . . ”. Hope this helps.
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There are several perfect tenses in Italian that don’t always line up exactly with the English use of the perfect tenses. The first example that you will meet that will likely cause confusion is the Italian Passato Prossimo which corresponds to the English present perfect in form but not always in function. Its most common usage is to translate the simple past tense (an oversimplification). It is formed like the English present perfect using a form of “have” and the past participle and while “ho comprato una macchina” CAN mean “I have bought a car” it more commonly means “I bought a car”. The other perfect tenses are introduced way late in this course so don’t worry about them yet
This is all fine to understand and adopt as a grammatical rule. But doesn't it also make sense to translate somewhat literally, as there are clearly Italian words and tenses that would support it, e.g., "Sono stato aspettando da agosto?"
Keith352848 É qua il dilemma di essere o non essere in questa era moderna che si scegliere parlere piú semplice non cosí nel tempo di quelli magni scrittori. Sto aspettando da Agosto mio figlio oppure Aspetto da Agosto mio figlio.
semuc Vive en Catalugna DESDE la posguerra. Canta billansicos DESDE el amanecer por horas.
"he has lived in Paris for years" Spanish "European language" and spoken in the American continent as well, this sentence would be something like this " El ha vivido en Paris por años" Not present tense form :)
El HA vivido es presente Perfecto en español... No es "a", es "ha" del verbo auxiliar haber
Gracias por corregirme. Si presente perfecto, por eso escribi "Not present tense" :)
Don't listen to what Duolingo translates when you hover over a word. I don't know why but as we learn more, Duo just fails to translate it properly and you have to think about the sentence yourself. This isn't really helpful when you're learning something new, and you're forced to lose a heart so you can learn from your ''mistakes''.
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I took a chance and put "ho aspettato" ... Ho, I have.... Aspettato, been waiting. Ho stato would be, I was waiting. I got it right.
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This is a present continuous action....the 'wating' is still continuing. As such you should use the present continuous. ( useing the gerund) . It is not a past tense in Italian.
Sto aspettando da agosto....or if you use the present indicative...Aspetto da agosto.
The clue in this sentence is the use of 'da'..meaning 'since'...which means the waiting is still happening in the present.
I'm not sure but if it's like latin you don't need to use "ho" because the have is not active "i have a thing" it's changing the tense of "to be" from perfect "i was" to passive perfect "i have been".
I don't know if this is a difference in Italian and latin or a duolingo simplification, but I would expect the Italian to be a passive perfect "to have been" and a present participle "waiting" to make the past perfect continuous statement.
either way we haven't learned anything other than present active, except for piace which is passive, so it's weird that they would throw us a non present active tense
Sorry Cathandrius, In English "have + past participle (been)" isn't a passive it's the (active) present perfect. The addtion of a present participle (in this case: waiting) makes it the (still active) present perfect progressive/continuous.
Exactly. In other words, you're still waiting. In Italian it would be past if the waiting would still be in the past.
I do not consider "piace" a passive form. Just as "it pleases" is not a passive form. It just reverses the roles of subject and object when translated as "like". To swap the roles back, then you can apply passive to the English: "it is liked".
I wrote "sono stato aspettando..." to emphasize that the action is still ongoing. Marked wrong. Is it just a (correct) alternative that DL did not consider, or is it just wrong?
You want more complexity? That's how you say it. "Da" can mean "since": http://www.wordreference.com/enit/since
Da agosto, versus d'agosto? What's the difference? Why is the second one wrong?
"I have been waiting..." is a past imperfect construct that should be translated as "aspettavo..."
This is present perfect progressive, but no lesson so far has gone over perfect tenses... come on duolingo how do you spect us to translate perfect tenses just because???
Why Da agosto instead of daL agosto? In the sentence with April we did have a connecting consonant.
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I get that at this point we still haven't mentioned past tenses, but DL woul have to considet "backwards compatibility" cases. Both "aspettavo da agosto" and "stavo aspettando da agosto" are correct, and even more precise than the answer DL gives. It should have been counted on the people returning to the old lessons and not making complete fools of them.
Spelled it wrong maybe. Aspettato da Agosto(waited since August). The correct answer is Ho aspettato de Agosto( I have been waiting since August) I wonder if you can say Io aspettato..hmm
why does the drop down box say Aspettado & the correct answer is Aspettato This seems to happens with many words!!
Two others have already asked this, but neither have gotten an answer, so I will give it a try... Why isn't "da agosto" contracted to "d'agosto"? If it can be, Duolingo doesn't accept it (I tried!)...
i dont know if it's still relevant but a native speaker had mentioned before that they don't tend to connect da to the following word even if that's an option
I have to remind my competitive self that going through a lesson more than once is more productive and useful to commit things to memory than if I make it through on the first try ;-)
This just came up in a practice session. I haven't even started other tenses yet oO
I believe the translation offered by this app is not correct as it should be in past participle too, ho aspetatto, or something like...
I thought the past tense was 'ho aspetto ' but it has been marked as wrong.
What is wrong with Ho? In other sentences like he eates with us, lui was OK, althuogh there too it was not necessary.
So where is the. I have been. Cause the Italian sentence means i wait since august
Joonie Il messagio a capirne qua é dobuto le altre esprezioni aggiunti del passato al presente progressivo overlapping; present+ da tempo pass and on. Vive a Parigi ((da anni)) Luigi canta ((da tre ori già))
I am italian ; we see : aspetto (da) d'agosto = sto aspettando (da) d'agosto .
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The Italian sentence is just a small one with only three words, which is in the present tense. But it has a meaning which, it seems, has nothing to do with the present tense at all, as we can see. Amazing! Surprising! Impressive! Bravo Italiano!
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For reasons that seem vague some words are normally not elided, like le, perhaps to reinforce that le is not the same as la which is elided. So Di is elided, but not da. The following comes from a ThoughtCo website posting:
The preposition da is usually not elided, except in a few fixed phrases
D'altronde - Moreover
D’altra parte - Somewhere else
D'ora in poi - From now on.
I was asked to write it in Italian, but the response came up in English. When I tried the English, it also said it was wrong. On 2 occasions, the response flashed in Italian and then immediately went to English, telling me I was wrong.