52 Comments
This seems more like an enthusiastic compliment, rather than an imperative order.
Perhaps a café owner telling a staff member to make a good coffee for their regular customer?
I was also wondering that... could it be used in a 'enjoy your meal' mood? Catalan, which shares some similarities with Italian, does use 'fer un café' for 'have a cup of coffee'.
Yeah, it said I needed "a" in "a good coffee" but I disagree. I get that it's needed in Italian but in English it just sounds weird... (still, it did accept my answer and only warned me about the "a").
Without the article it is "coffee" in general, with it it is a single specific cup
Not again! I don't see any reason why "you make good coffee" should not be accepted
In realtà qui il punto d'esclamazione fa supporre un imperativo, ma capisco la frustrazione. Comunque segnalalo e vedrai che prima o poi lo accetteranno.
1508
This lesson is about imperatives in Italian, not about articles in English. Here is the translation for down-voters:
Actually here the exclamation mark does suggest an imperative, but I understand the frustration. Anyway report it and you will see that sooner or later they will accept it.
«buono» becomes «buon» when it comes before the noun: «Mi piace il buon caffè ma non il cattivo.» versus «Il caffè è buono.».
Normally we are taught [in Duolingo] to put an adjective after the noun, so why do we put the adjective first in this sentence? Is it caused by the imperative mood?
«buono» is one of those exceptions that can be placed before the noun, just like all numbers, possessive adjectives/pronouns like «tuo», and some other adjectives describing age and quality.
- 319
So a couple of sentences ago I wrote "make" a light breakfast and was told it should be "have" a light breakfast. Now I write "have" a good coffee and get told it's "make" a good coffee. Frustrating!
but why is fate = "make" here with the coffee but with colazione it is "have"?
Actually, this would mean "Make a good espresso," but DL probably wouldn't accept that. ; )
- 428
fate una collazione = have a breakfast, and fate un buon coffee = make a good coffee. Is there any logic in this?
I wrote "you all" make a good coffee. Even though this isn't common English usage, it's still correct, and more descriptive for the "voi" case. Why isn't it accepted?
I thought I read in another answer that "Fa'un buon caffe." was correct. Did I read that wrong?
«fai»/«fa'»/«fa» is the imperative for the second-person singular, but «fate» is the imperative for the second-person plural: http://www.italian-verbs.com/italian-verbs/conjugation.php?verbo=fare
«fate» is the imperative of «voi» (the plural "you"). Please feel free to take a look at the link I provided to heidi4793 above. ↑
- 1039
Either "make good coffee" or "make some good coffee" or "make a good cup [or pot or whatever] of coffee". Not, however, "make a good coffee".
- 1123
In Australia, we would say "a coffee", as in "Would you like a coffee?". The English translation made perfect sense to me.
In Romance languages, "to do" and "to make" are one verb. In English, they are two, and they are not interchangeable. Therefore, you "make" coffee, and you do not "do" coffee. Anything that involves some kind of creation/process, especially cooking/baking, takes the verb "make." Anything that involves some kind of completion/process takes the verb "do," like homework or any kind of task. Perhaps an exception would be to "make the bed."
Di nulla e grazie! I hope I was able to help. It is actually difficult to explain.
i don't like your methods, bartender, but you sure as hell gets results!
They want to make it obvious that this is the imperative lesson. Because some of the conjugations in the imperative mood do not change from the present indicative in Italian (e.g. «scriviamo» is both "we write" in present and "let's write" in imperative), the exclamation point tells you that Duolingo expects you to write the answer in the imperative mood.
Use «buon» when the following noun takes «il» as its article. Use «buono» when the following noun takes «lo» as its article. For example, «buon cameriere» but «buono zio».
er ... How is this an imperative? OK it's got an exclamation mark, but to me it sounds more like 'You make a good coffee'.
- 269
imperativo presente
fài, fa' (non fàre) tu
fàccia egli
facciàmo noi
fàte voi
fàcciano essi
