"Era necessario che parlassi."
Translation:It was necessary for me to speak.
78 CommentsThis discussion is locked.
How do we know it should be first person singular and not second ? There do not seem to be any indications about which it should be, or am I missing something obvious?
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This is a case where you include the subject if it would be ambiguous. However if you don't, the default always seems to be "io" unless otherwise obvious.
Ok, I wrote "It was necessary that you spoke." and got it right. However DL offered another translation "It was necessary that I speak." How can both be accepted for "Era necessario che parlassi." Those two translations have different objects: you spoke/ I speak!!!!!!!!!!!!
In the past subjunctive the two verb forms are all the same: che io parlassi, che tu parlassi. In the present subjunctive it's even worse, the singular forms are all the same. To be unambiguous in Italian you'd have to use the personal pronouns (which is something you always do in English but rarely in Italian).
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The problem is that the subjunctive is not used much in English as a distinct tense. Therefore, "It was necessary that you spoke" and "It was necessary that you speak" are both possible, though I'd favor the latter. [Native US English speaker]
Ogni frase deve essere inserito in un contesto, nella frase precedente sicuramente c'è il soggetto (io oppure tu) e, di conseguenza, sappiamo chi sta parlando. Es: Mi stavo chiedendo (io): e se parlassi un po' di meno? Stai dicendo un sacco di fesserie (tu): e se parlassi un po' di meno? Nel caso non ci sia un soggetto chiaramente espresso e ci sia il rischio di ambiguità, io o tu vanno inseriti prima, o talvolta dopo, del congiuntivo. Ad esempio, un libro narra che, a teatro, uno spettatore disturba, il protagonista lo riprende e nasce un fastidioso battibecco. Leggiamo: e se parlassi un po' di meno? (può essere il protagonista del libro che lo sta pensando tra sé rivolto a se stesso, oppure lo sta dicendo al disturbatore). Nel primo caso diremo: e se IO parlassi un po' di meno? nel secondo: e se TU parlassi un po' di meno? al che, il disturbatore potrebbe rispondere. E se parlassi TU un po' di meno?
Spero sia chiaro.
Grazie mille ma, il mio problema è con quest'esercizio non abbiamo ogni informazione senza "era necessario che parlassi" ... in una situazione così (una situazione artificiale) deve assumere che sia "io" in assenza di altre informazioni?
It's absolutely impossible to know who the subject is. It may be I or you. But it's also absurd to find a clause without a context. Were I to find a piece of paper on which someone wrote: ...spoke to the Queen! Could you tell me who spoke? And in this case we have not only I and you as unknown subjects, but also he, she,we you and they.
Thank you .... that's what I thought but I wasn't sure if there might be some rule about what you could or should assume if you had no other information. At least I now know that it's not me being particularly dense. You have been a great help to me as usual my friend :-))
I keep thinking that "i" ending in this Subjunctive Verbs section refer to "you". They seem also to refer to "me". I see others have noticed this too. The hover DOES indicate "I/you spoke" I think you'd have to put the "tu" in if you wanted to stress that "you" spoke.
Obviously context is everything here to differentiate "I speak" from "you speak."
IMPERFETTO che io palassi che tu palassi http://www.italian-verbs.com/italian-verbs/conjugation.php?parola=Palare+
To the point about English subjunctive, possibly a better translation using the subjunctive is something like "It was necessary that you would speak."
Past imperfect implies the action was not complete, and subjunctive weakens it even more. Maybe even though it was necessary, you did not speak.
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As for the English sentence, "for me" should not be necessary. Duo should accept, "It was necessary to speak."
"Parlassi" is both the first and second person imperfect subjunctive form of "parlare," so "era necessario che parlassi" can mean both "it was necessary for ME to speak" and "it was necessary for YOU to speak."
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Would someone saying this usually use a pronoun or would one have to know by context who has had to speak?
Maybe I'm just old but I prefer the translation "It was necessary that I speak.". It has the virtue of being correct though, perhaps, archaic in English and I believe it is a literal translation from the Italian.
I'm old too, but I think "You needed to talk" would be the best translation. I didn't dare put this though because of DL's literal bent! :-)
I translated it as: it was necessary i would talk It gave me the right version as: It was necessary for you to talk. In the forum it says that the correct version is: It was necessary for me to speak.
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"It was necessary for me to talk" was incorrect. I think both "speak" and "talk" should be accepted in this sentence.
Could the sentence not also be translated with "It was necessary that you speak"
Bonjour, Je ne comprend pas pourquoi on ajoute "for me", alors "che parlasssi" = Que tu parle
C'est ambigu: 'che parlassi' peut être 'que tu parles' mais aussi 'che je parle'
Even though this is the Subjunctive Imperfect tense, I assume that it is still about the presence of doubt in the given statement. There is no doubt in the above sentence. So I must assume that the tense is triggered by "che" regardless of its degree of definitiveness?
Also, I believe that the Italian sentence also mean "It was necessary for YOU to speak." It would make of itself a better learning tool if Duo listed ALL the correct translations.
era necessario che parlassi. Che parlassi chi? First and second person have the same ending. Do we need a crystal ball to guess who has to talk? Please DL don't try to trick people that is struggling to learn
Could this sentence also be translated to: it was necessary for you to speak
It was necessary I spoke. English subjunctive. Not accepted. I wonder at language learners who think English uses the subjunctive less than Italian. I think it's because Italian has a different verb form that makes it seem so difficult. Perhaps my English is a tad archaic. Would that I were young!
"You needed to talk" would be the best translation. I didn't dare put this though because of DL's literal bent! :-)
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Not necessarily. The pedant in me says that perhaps you yourself felt no such need, and that "other people needing you to talk" or the situation making it necessary for you to talk is not necessarily the same as "YOU needed to talk."
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I put "it was necessary that you talked " which was accepted . This sentence would, surely, be improved by the addition of a personal pronoun before parlassi .
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This lesson is confusing. It says it's teaching us about past tense verbs that show two things happening at the same time, but in the translations, they use a past tense verb "It was..." and then present tense "to speak". Instead, couldn't it have been properly translated as "It was necessary that I spoke."? Then the tenses would agree and it would match the drop-down hints that include spoke, talked, and told. It's hard enough to keep all these verb tenses straight and use them appropriately, but when the English translations are so "loose", it makes it even harder.
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I thought that if there was no pronoun the subjunctive is understood as if it were in 2nd person. And here it is translated with 1st person
Where does the "for me" translate without io? Isnt "It was necessary to speak" a better translation?