"Which whale?"
Translation:Quale balena?
31 Comments
Balena has officially become one of the Italian words I will likely never have to look up. I must go to a zoo or aquarium in Italy someday just so I can ask where the whales are...
There are only three forms to Quale (to agree in number, it is invariable in regards to gender) The three forms are:
Quale - Singular Quali - Plural Qual - used before è
"Which old whale?" "The wicked whale!" "Ding Dong, the wicked whale is dead!"
So quale or quali does not have to agree with the gender of the subject...just the number ?
Yes, see AngieFiore's post above:
"There are only three forms to Quale (to agree in number, it is invariable in regards to gender) The three forms are:
Quale - Singular Quali - Plural Qual - used before è"
i honestly just need to know "how much is this?" and "where is the library?" im never gonna need to ask someone where the whales are..well you never know
Well I searched and found a reference on the web. It seems quite complete and from what I understand quale can be apocopate (keeping in mind some rules) but does not have to. http://en.allexperts.com/q/Italian-Language-1584/2010/8/apocope.htm. Hope it helps. In any case, seach for "apocope" and you will get different references. Sorry I couldn't find a straight forward answer. Hope someone can.
Apocope (or cutting of) is a phenomenon where a syllable or a phonema is "temporally" removed from his word for sound/pronunciation reasons. Otherwise you'd have heard a bad sound.
For example: un bello fiore.
All parts of that sentence are grammatical correct but it is wrong from the sound point of view. Instead, what happens here is that the final syllable lo from the adjective bello is removed and you will say un bel fiore.
The same process happens for Qual è. It is subject to apocope process and never to elisione (to remove or to suppress), e.g. Quel'è <== WRONG.
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"which whale" is it literal translation? What about verb? why there is no "è"?
Well there isn't a verb in English either, and it makes sense. Which thing? And which thing is it? And which thing do you want? And which thing do you hate? et cetera are all ok.
So after all the discussion I still don't know why I can't say "Qual balena?" Or if in fact I can and should report it to the duobot.
i too found this frustrating! after doing a bit of reading, this page was useful to me : http://iltavoloitaliano.com/enhanced_beginner_2_Italian_6/ It's basically quale & quali (sing. & plur.) for all genders, with qual only used before è.
Ok, just to confirm. You never put a definite article between a question word and the object that follows it?
Yup!! or "the one on the right, or left, or underneath the table, or with the pink bow on its head"
