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- "Non so che ora è."
34 Comments
one of the correct answers is written as..... I don't know what time it's..... but after 60 years of speaking my mother tongue, I have never heard anyone abbreviate 'it is' in this context. Perhaps American English as this programme favours it?
Well, "it's" means "it is" or "it has" as in "It's time." or "It's been a long time." I don't see how the computer program would realize that we don't do it at the end of a sentence. "It's crazy!" We also would not abbreviate "What a big girl you are!" with "you're". "What nonsense it is!" "It is!" When we use the contraction, we are not emphasizing the verb and so we are looking for the next important word. When there isn't another word following it, we don't use the contraction. We also would not use two contractions next to each other in the same sentence. http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/it's http://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/british/it-s?q=it%27s http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/us/definition/american_english/it%27s?q=it%27s+ http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/us/words/contractions-American http://www.ehow.com/how_2299957_use-contractions.html
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I do not know any English speaker to say "I don't know what time i'ts is. That is just incorrect.
Without any prior explanation, "Hour" should be an acceptable translation of "Ora".
If you think about how languages are in general, they can be similar, but also very different. In this phrase,a direct English translations would be: "I don't know who hour it is", this is of course wrong sentence structure in English, but in Italian that is completely right, and anything else could be wrong. For example if we directly translated "I do not know what the time is" I guess that would be wrong sentence structure in Italian. Languages are different, and therefore they cannot often just be directly translated. ;)
Che is what, not who. Chi is who. Cosa and che cosa also mean what. Other than that, good point. Though I think it's not particularly idomatic to say that you dont know the hour. Duolingo didn't accept that one though.
The point remains: one cannot be expected to understand idiomatic expressions before being enlightened as to their correct translations.
The whole process of Duolingo is that children hear things before they understand what they mean and yet learn faster. We learn more by making a mistake then from a correct answer. One is not expected to understand before it is explained, but this is often the way things come to our attention. In a quiz format, we pay more attention to something we did not know. You can buy an extra heart in the lingot store and use it for just such an occasion.
Yes, that is incorrect in English. Word order is important. "What time is it?" would be a question. In a statement, the verb comes after the subject.
"...quale di le ore sono" literally "which of the hours it is"? http://dictionary.reverso.net/english-italian/which http://italian.about.com/cs/travel/ht/telltimeitalian.htm http://italian.about.com/od/grammar/a/italian-mixed-relative-pronouns.htm http://video.about.com/italian/Telling-Time-in-Italian.htm http://italian.about.com/od/grammar/a/italian-relative-pronouns.htm
Why translate ora as 'time' here and as 'hour' in a similar lesson. Isn't it interchangeable if the speaker choses one way over the other?
Context is everything in Italian it seems. We have everything here at a distance so it is more difficult to get an accurate sense of the sentences.
This must be one to just memorize, right? Because I don't see where hour would be "wrong"... it is a common thing to say, "I don't know what the hour is"... when you want to have a very loose idea of what time it is, but you aren't looking for the exact time down to the minute. Guidance?
How about a more philosophical approach and just say: "I don't know what time is."
It is more specific. "I don't know what the hour is." would mean that you have some idea, but maybe you don't know if it is 10:45 or 11: 45 since 45 minutes ago the clock rang and you didn't pay attention to how many "bongs" the clock made or maybe that the minutes are simply irrelevant and you only want to know which hour it is. Here there is no definite article and the indefinite word for hour, when no indefinite article is provided in English, is time. "an hour" is still used for "one hour". http://context.reverso.net/translation/english-italian/I+don%27t+know+which+is+your+favorite+hour
That would not be the same.
"how late" is "quanto tardi" or "quanto in retardo"
"how late it ends" is "fino a che ora"
http://dictionary.reverso.net/english-italian/how%20late http://context.reverso.net/translation/english-italian/how+late
The pronunciation of "ora e" seems to be "or eye". Is this correct? Or is it (as it is written): "ora e"?
