"Non sapendo dire no alla madre, finisco col fare tutto quello che dice."
Translation:Not knowing how to say no to my mother, I end up doing everything that she says.
35 Comments
this entire gerund section is the most frustrating yet on this usually great site
Getting marked wrong for "mom" rather than "mum" is maybe the angriest I've ever gotten for getting one wrong!
Yeah, like Emrani says, it has nothing to do with how you spell it. That's just the wrong word altogether. It's debatable I guess, but it's not (or at least doesn't seem to be) a matter of "mom" vs "mum".
I put "mom" here because I lost a heart putting "mother" in another sentence. Which is then accepted here, while "mom" is not -____-
Yes, you're correct "col" is a contraction of "con + il" . I wasn't clear enough in my question. I was wondering why the definite article is need, therefore why "col" instead of "con" ?
yes, I am also confused about why an article is appearing before an infinitive -- this is the first time I remember seeing this.
To be given a seentence of 13 words as a dictation in this miserable audio quality and then getting it marked wrong because of a single typo really drives me mad
The verb "sapere" can be translated as "to know" as well as "to know how to".
The latter is used when we have "sapere" followed by an infinitive of some verb.
example:
- Purtroppo non so guidare una macchina. = Unfortunately I don't know how to drive a car.
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The hoover said being able is to also a possible translation which seemed odd.
Well, I made a mistake of taking the hoover suggestion as a possible option and said "Not being able to say no to my mother, I end up doing all that she says" and was shut down :-).
Apparently “finire CON la/ COL...” (or PER) is an idiom meaning “to end up [doing something- infinitive]” because circumstances forced you to. “Finire A [infinitive]” means ending up doing the thing because you exhausted all other possibilities - “end of the line.”
“I finish doing” would’ve been “finisco di fare”
Use of the definite article without a pronoun is common in Italian. The owner has to be inferred from the context.
"all that she asks" should be OK, but "all what she asks" is not standard English. The use of "what" in this way is usually regarded as "uneducated English". This may help: http://english.stackexchange.com/questions/107073/use-of-what-vs-that (though I found the answer given difficult to follow).
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Unfortunately the word "says" does not exist in the list. The fault is inevitable.
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I wrote "I finish by doing" rather than "I end up doing". Why was my answer wrong??
"mama" instead of "my mother", "finish" rather than "end up" and DL marks the sentence wrong? Perché??
1) "mama" is informal. "mother" is formal. (2) " I finish doing everything that she says" suggests that you complete the tasks that she tells you to do. "I end up doing everything that she says" means that you do what she wants (even if you don't really want to).
Even accepting the formal/informal reason for DL wanting the one over the other, I have grave doubts DL believes that "end up doing" is more emphatically a rejection of wanting to do anything than is "finish doing", not to the point that it was a make/break point of a gerund lesson. But, thanks for the time you took. Have a lingot.
I would say, "Not knowing how to say no to my mother, I finish doing everything everything that she says." It's more of a literal translation than the acceptable one, but why doesn't it convey the point?
