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- "They can offer something els…
"They can offer something else."
Translation:Possono offrire qualcos'altro.
19 Comments
possano is congiuntivo, another grammatical mood, comparable to the subjunctive in spanish.
cosa is feminine. Isn't qualcosa feminine too ? If so, why not qualcos'altra ?
1044
Qualcosa is a pronoun and it's neither masculine nor feminine, though it's used in the masculine form.
Therefore qualcos'altro.
I think that you'd just have to learn it as is:
qualcos'altro = something else (in affirmative sentences), anything else (in questions)
- 724
Ok, I'm completely confused. What is the difference between possono and possano? And why is possano a hint (not possono) and then we are marked wrong fir using it?
can anyone elaborate on the choice beginning with "essi"? I almost picked that one also, but unchecked it at the last second (thankfully!). thanks in advance to anyone who helps :D
Essi is the traditional subject pronoun for "they." Modern Italians now use "loro" to mean both "them" (the traditional meaning of the word) and "they." So when you start a sentence with "Loro possono offrire", you are literally saying, "Them can offer." It sounds strange to us in that form (so of course we translate it as the English subject pronoun "They"), but that is the common form in Italian, similiar to English speakers using "who" when they ought to be using "whom."
Using "Essi" would not be incorrect, and it is still how one would write a formal essay (to my understanding). But in common speech, Italians use loro as a subject as well.
Something similar has happened in English. We used to use "ye" as the subject pronoun and "you" as the object form, but now nobody uses "ye" (unless they are trying to sound archaic or using fixed phrases like "hear ye").
