"Sono una donna."
Translation:I am a woman.
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That's simply the way Italian is pronounced. The "o" and "u" run together. There is no problem with the recording.
With "lady" we usually think [in Italy] about a "rafined woman". ["Signorina" if she's a rafined girl, and "Signora" if she's a rafined woman]
Ladies and gentlemen = Signore e Signori
This is essential knowledge as many times when you need a "bagno" (bathroom/toilet) you will end up in front of two doors only labelled Signore (Ladies) and Signori (Gentlemen)
All ladies are women . . . but the opposite is not true.
a baby/young girl = una bambina
a girl = una ragazza
a woman = una donna
a young/unmarried lady = una signorina
a lady = una signora
the queen = la regina
. . but if she is la regina del notte she is a party queen
I put lady and it was wrong. In Spanish and Portuguese, according to duolingo, lady and woman are interchangable like in English too.
Also, as "sono" means both "I am" and "they are", sometimes it is needed for clarification.
As verbs (words for actions) are conjugated to person and number you normally do not need to also include the personal pronoun (I, you, she . . . ) e.g.
I drink - bevo
you drink - bevi
he/she/it drinks - beve
we drink - beviamo
you (all) drink - bevete
they drink - bevono
Sometime you might still want tho emphasis who is drinking, - and sometimes the personal pronoun is needed e.g. to clarify that it is she and not he that is drinking.
For the use of personal pronouns you might want to check ThoughCo and for looking up Italian verb conjugations I recommend WordReference
It is like in Hungarian, but it is even more strange, because sometimes the verb is also missed. For example, the sentence Világos. means it is light (világos is light).
Always click on the lightbulbs! They give you rules to the language you're learning, including that the beginning pronoun is sometimes left off. Lightbulbs really help. Always click and read them.
Well I hear it all fine. Maybe because my first language is Spanish and it's similar to Italian, but I can hear the audio all fine.
it is perfect. i am italian and have problems with the danish course, but it is not wrong, it'sjust different
I'm a bit confused. Shouldn't it be "Io sono una donna" to say "i am a woman" instead of "Sono una donna"?
"Io sono una donna" is correct, but in Italian normally the subject is implied, you can omit it.
it is because most verbs have six different words for the six subjects... no needs to say.
It is just like an illusion to your ears. It sounds like "it" is saying la, but it says una if you listen carefully.
you just have to keep on your toes when getting used to pronunciation in a new language
i bet it's the fact that "un" is used before a masculine word and "una" before a feminine
So,..being that it is a man saying this sentence, maybe it should be "Io sono un donna" ! ;) (really, they should have a woman saying this sentence!!!)
"io sono una donna" is the complete sentence but we can drop "io" so "sono una donna" also works. Am I right?
Yes you are.
"Sono una donna" can theoretically also mean "They are a woman", - but that is so odd you would normally just ignore that.
The present tense conjugations of Essere (to be)
io . . . . . sono - I am
tu . . . . . sei - you are
lui/lei . . è - he/she/it is
noi . . . . siamo - we are
voi . . . . siete - you (all) are
loro . . . sono - they are
In case you need to look something like this up I recommend using WrodReference
Is it just me, or does it feel weird calling yourself an opposite gender, they do that a lot.
It is weird to type 'I am a man' but it what was even weirder was in the Latin tree when having to type 'I have a kind mother', and the Spanish tree having to type 'My brother is very intelligent'. Both of those made me wince more than the sentences with an opposing gender to myself.
Can some explain to me why sometimes they do not write 'io'. I s it a slang term?
"Io" is optional here. Native speakers only use the subject pronoun for clarity or emphasis.
http://italian.about.com/od/grammar/fl/Italian-Subject-Pronouns.htm
feminine.. I'm guessing words have gender here and articles have gender as well.. ??
yes, many words have a masculine and a femenine form (ragazzo, ragazza) and each gender has its own gender. There are also articles masc plural and femenine plural
Verb conjugations don't change their endings (only the adjectives do that) when referring to gender.
it does not have io in the beginning therefore the literal translation should be "am the woman"
the woman = la donna
a woman = una donna
the women = le donne
five women = cinque donne
In Paris it is very common where the last letter of one word is connected to the first of another. Such as, "comment allez-vous aujourd'hui" In Paris, there is no separation between most of the words. The "t" of "comment" is connected to "allez", etc... This is prolific throughout most Latin-based languages. Whereas, when in Strasbourg, where the French language is influenced by Germany, the speakers there enunciate more.
In general, the form ‘sono’ can only refer to “I” or “They”. “You are” = ‘Tu sei’ or ‘Voi siete’.
In this sentence, ‘sono’ can only refer to “I”, because “They are a woman.” doesn't ordinarily make sense.
seems to me it is possibly similar to the argument/debate in English - about using the plural 'their/theirs' for a singular person? maybe...
It's true that, as in English, third-person singular pronouns in Italian are gender-specific. However, in Italian, one can and usually does omit the subject pronoun. The Italian third-person plural pronoun, ‘loro’=“they”, which is gender-neutral, already doubles as the deferential ‘Loro’=“You [formal plural]”, so its classist connotation as the pluralis maiestatis makes it a poor candidate for a singular pronoun. A few anti-sexist Italians are trying to revive the Latin neutral pronoun ‘id’=“it”, but the implication of sexlessness and inanimacy makes that effort no more likely to succeed in Italian than in English.
Because binary gender is pervasive in Italian, affecting not just pronouns but nearly all nouns and adjectives, the problem is much more deeply rooted. Alma Sabatini's seminal 1987 work Raccomandazioni per un uso non sessista della lingua italiana, commissioned by the government, took the first baby steps toward non-sexist language in Italian.
In online writing, sexism-conscious Italians have taken to substituting a wild-card character in gender-specific suffixes, as in «Sono un ragazz italian*.»=“I'm an Italian child.”. It may take a while for such usage to spread and for an equivalent solution to develop in the spoken language.
I don't recall seeing Sono prior to this sentence in this program. Is this where it's supposed to be introduced, or did I just miss something?
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It just depends on how you got the question. Sometimes it will give you the question in a form with out help on the word, and you may need to look it up. You could just look it up in Discussion.
Duolingo wants you to learn the pronoun "I" with its correct conjugated form of the verb.
hi all need to confess i need tips please because i peek at words instead of trying to read them i am thinking to stop try to learn
how do you know when to use it correctly? I is io so I would think it would be said "Io " so Sono means I am?
Why is the English translation "I am a woman" instead of "am a woman"? I learned that "I am a woman" is Io sono una donna.
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I missed out one n in donna and they gave me incorrect. I know it is technically incorrect, but i have completely miss spelled things before and they been like "fine well give you that". I dont mind i know it's incorrect, but at least be conistant
How come "io" or I is not at the begining? You seem to do this for io sono l'uomo (i am the man). Any answer???
Why does is say 'io sono' and sometimes it's only 'sono' does it mean the same thing?
Why have they used a male voice in the recording to say "I am a woman"?
I get to this question and will not let me go any further. Keeps repeating over and over.
I am a little confused... Earlier in the course I was told to say "Io sono una donna" and now the phrase "Sono una donna" comes up without the "Io" .. so it means or translates to the same thing ?
As verbs (words for actions) are conjugated to person and number you normally do not need to also include the personal pronoun (I, you, she . . . ) e.g.
I drink - bevo
you drink - bevi
he/she/it drinks - beve
we drink - beviamo
you (all) drink - bevete
they drink - bevono
Sometime you might still want tho emphasis who is drinking and sometimes the personal pronoun is needed e.g. to clarify that it is she and not he that is drinking.
For the use of personal pronouns you might want to check ThoughCo and for looking up Italian verb conjugations I recommend WordReference
Could the speaker be sex appropriate? It's illogical to learn a language by having women saying they're men and men saying they are women.
I typed "I'm a woman" but the app said it's wrong guess the correct answer. It is " I am a woman" hahaha
I wrote what I heard: Sono uno donna. I was told I was wrong. The correct answer was: Sono uno donna. Anyone have any idea why. It is a tad disheartening, this early in the game.
I just started this course, I noticed there is no "Io" in front of "sono", so "I am a woman" is not "Io sono una donna". Why do you ommit the "Io"?
Because it's included in the conjugation of the verb.
Essere = (to) be
Conjugations of Essere in the present tense:
sono = I am
sei = you are
è = he/she/it is
siamo = we are
siete = you (all) are
sono = they are
(Essere is a tricky irregular verb, - most verbs are not this complicated)
There is an introduction for beginners at ThoughCo and an article on how to conjugate verbs like an Italian here
I often use WordRef to look up conjugations.
I tried saying it and it didint hear me and said i was wrong, does anyone else have this problem?
It can be that the microphone is turned off or that the right to use it has been turned off for the local app.
They just omg whyy they didn't add "Io" for noo reason their sentence was "Sono
Una donna" ughh
I put my answer in english and it said incorrect but had the same exact answer periods and all and said that was the right answer.