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- Topic: Italian >
- "Lui si trova in prigione."
66 Comments
I gave you two lingots because you're too generous, and I have 1,869 of them still left!
Thanks!
Ok, I don't gave you guys lingots, because I just have thirteen and I need 25 to buy the "italian quiz". But I upvoted all the sequence because y'all are too funny to ignore! Congratulations. Best way to show the world some warm hearts!
Givin' y'all some lingots 'cause you brighten up this heart o' mine <3
I came here just to see if anybody gives me lingot without me giving you any lingots at all.
Not really, I'm giving one to Behco.
Hello, Murray. Would you be so kind to answer a few questions? Does Duolingo offer any other bonus skill except the proverbs and flirting? If not, how can one spend earned lingots? How can one get rid of 'formal-attire' suit after that it is equipped? Thank you in advance.
If you have purchased the "formal-attire" suit, then I know that you are using a mobile device/ tablet, because the desktop version does not offer that option.
I'm sorry, but I do not know how to get rid of that feature. (I'm not even sure why they thought it was a good idea to offer it!)
As for bonus skills, it is a fairly common question.
Around about November/ December, they have been offering up "Christmas" as the third bonus skill.
I was in the initial beta group (3 years ago, now?) and it was actually the first bonus skill offered to us after they introduced lingots.
So I've always had it, and it doesn't go away once you do buy it. But it seems that it disappears and comes back based on the calendar date, not dependent on anything that you have done previously (you can be at a very "low" level of experience and still buy bonus skills.)
I wouldn't worry much about missing out, though, as it is fairly repetitive and largely idiomatic. And not useful, except at Christmas.
How can one spend lingots? If I knew, I'd tell you. I currently have 3,010 of them.
Back when the system used "hearts" to track your progress during a lesson (if you lost three hearts then you had to start the lesson over again), there was an option to buy a bonus "heart" for a small amount of lingots (was it 5? It's been so long now).
You can give them away; to people you like, or for comments that you like, but otherwise they are pretty useless.
I don't think that Duo knows what to do with them, now, but there would surely be a rebellion if they tried to take them away from some people.
I think it's a way of collecting "prestige" for some-- I have 2,000 lingots, and you only have 60!
Thank you so much for thoroughly answering my question. Surely I'll buy the third bonus skill as soon as it is available. You are right about the prestige and yours certainly is considerable.
I got 83 lingots for my streak yesterday, so now I have 3,094 lingots.
If only there was a way to make real money off of those.
You just click on a different outfit to change to a different one. There is also a dragon costume available during the Chinese New Year.
How do you giveblingots? I thought it wss just a joke. If they gave real prizescwe mught get more motivatef to learn money is good, airline tickets, etc
Lui si trova in prigione ==> He finds himself in prison
what is the action/verb?
trova = (he/she/it) finds, verb
who does the action?
Lui = he, subject
what/who does the subject action (what does he find) ?
si = himself, reflexive pronoun
in prigione = in prison, propositional phrase
He himself finds in prison ==> He finds himself in prison
SanneTofte you are the greatest...you have the utmost ability to explain these things in the simplest of ways...please continue. The perspective you bring forth is extremely helpful! Meno male per Tu. Grazie mille
does this mean that he has awoken to find himself in prison or that he has found his soul in prison?
this mean "he is in prison", "he find himself in prison" is literal and wrong translation.
A better translation would therefore be: "He is being found in prison"/"He can be found in prison"? Or something like that? With the verb "trovere" meaning "to be located/situated".
No, the best translation is "He is in prison". "Lui è in prigione" and "lui si trova in prigione" have the same meaning. "He can be found in prison", is probably the best literal translation. This translation captures the "nuances" of the sentence. "Lui si trova in prigione" is the same thing of "lui è in prigione", but using the verb "trovare" the sentence could say something like "if you have to meet him, you can find him in prison". But the gist of this sentence is "he is in prison". If you translate this sentence into "He can be found in prison", you catch "the nuances", but not the gist. The small differences between "Lui è in prigione" and "Lui si trova in prigione" make sense only in Italian. In English is "He is in prison".
I don't think that's right, because it is possible to "find yourself" in English without going on some spiritual odyssey. For this sentence the context would be as MABBY said: "After drinking too much wine, he finds himself in prison."
In English, to "find oneself" doing something simply implies that the situation is somewhat unexpected. You certainly don't need to go looking for yourself (as it were) to find yourself doing something. :)
2498
My native language is Swedish, we have also a special verb for 'trovarsi' that in English is best translated with just 'be in'. Or like 'nicolads89' says, the nuance 'knowing where to find the person' (in prison). It has nothing to do with unexpected, or looking for oneself', it just means "being" in a place. In this case literal translation in English just makes it too complicated.
So how, in Italian, can you say 'he finds himself in prison' if that is what you want to say instead of simply 'he is in prison'?
One could also think of it like this: he does something with good intentions, but causes too much trouble and in the chaos, before he could understand what was happening, he is charged and sent to prison, so he finds himself in prison.
- 2498
Otherwise you would think he 'finds the prison' (the adress?), when he actually has 'ended up' in prison himself (convicted).
Very bad english her. It should simply translate as "he is in prison". English does not really offer a better way tp translate this sentence.
I took this to mean that he did something bad and "winds up" in prison, thereby meaning He is surprised to "find" himself in prison. It is sometimes meant this way in English. I hope someone else can understand how I am putting it.
Lui è in prigione: he is in prison . Dire " Lui trova se stesso in prigione" è sbagliato
- 2498
You are 'sweet' trying to find a deeper mening in a verb that actually just meens 'be in' ! :-)
- 622
OBTW: Saint Peter, Paul of Tarsus and not a saint, Adolph Hitler also found themselves in prison. A good time to reflect, read and write... maybe even find more time for Domingo. 12Jul15
- 2498
No, 'stesso' cannot replace 'si' here, trovar-si is a reflexive verb, it needs the personal pronoun.
I wonder how somebody can find himself in prison. He is in prison but he didn't find himself there. I don't understand the English meaning.
- 236
"He finds himself in prison." could be replaced with "He realises that he is in prison.". It means the same thing in English. However, it is probably too different from the original Italian to be a good Duolingo translation.
This happened after that unexplained man in the bathtub, or perhaps the knife in the boot.
?? It means "he is in a prison" and sounds normal, who can say "finds himself"? Our it is app of translation word to word?
It's quite sweet actually. It's like it emphasises he is a human being with hope of doing good and enjoying life outside prison peacefully for he may be in prison but he just finds himself there.
I have the right answer and it was marked wrong, because I gave a variant as well. why?
My head is going to explode. It seems redundant to say him/he twice. I thiught "si" ment "yes".
- 2498
Yes = sì with a 'stress mark' (`) above the letter i. 'Si' with a normal dot is a pronoun, in this case reflexive, pointing at the subject itself
Why don't you need the word "stesso" here? An earlier example talked about a girl who talks to herself, using the word "stessa" to convey that reflexive meaning. Shouldn't it be the same here? Arguably this could be translated as "He finds him in prison", no?
- 2498
No, trovarsi is always reflexive = BE in prison, nothing else. For me it is so obvious, because I am Swedish, and we also have an equivalent verb "befinna sig" = BE in a place. It's just that English don't have anything equal to this construction.
- 2498
Using the transitive 'trovare qu/qc' is another matter. Lo trovo (Eng: I find him; Sw: Jag finner honom), Lui lo trova (He finds him; Han finner honom)
friswing, thank you for your reply - it does help clear things up a little bit. I guess I need to do some more research on reflexive constructions because, you're right, we don't really have anything like that in English. Thanks a lot! :-D
I have seen "si trova" more often used to just mean "is." Granted I learned from Rosetta Stone, but they often say things like "La Cina si trova in Asia." I learned that it should be translated as "can be found".
