154 Comments
The problem with sentences like this is that I know a literal translation is wrong, but when I've only got one heart left I'm not really willing to hazard a guess as to exactly which non-literal phrasing will be expected
I liked the hearts, but I have to admit I think the new system is both less stressful and more enjoyable. It takes the onus from not making mistakes to correcting that made mistake when they (often immediately) throw the same question back at you.
As a largely tablet user I don't usually get to the read the lesson explanation on the lesson summary page or the pop-up explanations during them and partly therefore had a lot of trouble with one of the earlier lessons. I was sorely tempted to quit after failing it for the fifth time and the new system does eliminate that frustration.
Molte grazie Duolinguo!
Oh crap! They need to add that feature on mobile devices.. im literally relying on these comments to explain haha
You need a laptop or desktop computer. Click discuss sentence under "You are Correct".
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It's the old Duolingo system. You had three hearts and you lost a heart when you had a wrong answer. If you lost all your hearts you had to start the lesson over again.
I don't take them too seriously, but some people do. I guess retaking the whole lesson is to much of a hassle.
We are on a site where the community is focused on grammar, vocab, and understanding of foreign communication concepts... my point is that this may be "TOO" much of a hassle to read this far in the comments. :)
You're right. Too many overthink & try to compare their own language. It doesn't matter if you say something that's not correct - as long as you're understood.
I like having to retake the lessons after I failed it's sort of drums it into my head the right way that's the only reason why I like to take the lessons again
Not a bad idea. Something else you can try is not looking at the screen when you move on to the next question. That provides simple extra listening practice.
Losing hearts is a sign that you don't know the topic well enough. Lose the heart, do the test again and get some more practice.
That's right. Making mistakes is not a bad thing. That is how we learn. Besides, the hearts system is gone now -- along with the opportunity to earn lingots with the full-heart bonus (presumably because so many people complained about losing hearts) -- so this isn't an issue anymore.
Thanks. I do have it on my phone but I don't like to use the phone for DL unless I'm traveling.
I entirely agree with you. A lot of people seem to be intent on just reaching the next node and forget that their success on doing so should be a reflection of how well they master the level. About the hearts : if you are a DL mobile app user and kept yourself from updating it, you still have the old system and can continue cashing on those lingot bonuses.
Yes, I still have the old app and can use it to get heart bonuses. Thanks for pointing that out. I prefer to use my laptop though, since it has a keyboard. The app is on my phone so it's tedious to use. When I get a tablet maybe I can transfer the app to that. Actually, I have become accustomed to the new system and do not miss the heart bonuses all that much anymore.
I absolutely agree with you. One can be gung ho or cavalier with 3 hearts intact
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The "heart thing" must be an ios matter. I don't get any limitation on android!
Yep, having fun getting to a (vaguely) beginner level in the language, but the heart's thing is entirely new to me. What have I been doing with my life? So niente (if that is even approximately correct).
only from northern Italy perhaps, I am from the south and usually we say, ¨io sono nata di gennaio¨
'I was born in January' makes more sense to me than 'I am from January' but what do I know, I'm from New York, lol
Same as first I heard a friend from LA said: "it sucks", take me a long time to find out what does it mean.
Seriously- I really enjoy the sentences where they make us THINK and figure out something new (that actually makes sense). :)
I know! Translated literally into English I can only think this would refer to time travel, but I was still able to understand that it referred to a birthday on the first try :)
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In some languages it's very common to say e.g. "I am from January" meaning "I was born in January". It is so in Polish. So for me "I am from January" sounds absolutely ok and is understandable, even without context. :)
'I'm from January' in English can only mean that 'I come from a place called 'January'', (as in 'I'm from England.')
They way I look at it, by saying "di gennaio" that phrase as used as a modifier - so the literal translation would be "I am of January" (not "from January"), and the closest English phrase I can think of would be something like "I'm a January baby" (January being an adj here).
Just my 2 cents!
Hehehaha I got caught by this one. I couldn't think what it was so I put "I am in January." and thought it might be a round-about way to say "It's January.", but duolingo told me the correct answer was "I am of January." which we wouldn't say either. I laughed when I saw this page with "I was born in January."
Interesting ! Thanks ! I was getting a little confused with this sentence...
Does Duolingo modify their program in response to members comments? Will it remove " I am from January " from its correct responses?
Yes, we do look at user comments, even though it takes a while sometimes. I just took it out. : )
Yes, it does. If you report a problem and offer an alternative solution, they do review it. I've had several emails from duolingo stating they've accepted my alternate and changed the question.
Nata/nato's genre is about the person (who's born in the mouth), like: "Io sono natA a gennaio" bc i'm a girl; if you are a male, you should say "Io sono natO a gennaio". (Sorry if there are mistakes, i'm italian ._.)
They are the past participle of nascere. As they take essere as the auxiliary they agree with the gender of the subject - so you get nata or nato according to the gender.
nata/ nato does that mean the person is female or male? The months are all masculine, are they not?
Translated into English and got it right. I wrote 'I'm from January.' But that's not good English just in case anyone here's learning English too.
It makes sense if you're a time traveler but that's not really a thing so...
surely though the literal sense of the phrase is 'i am from january', when translating one needs to convey the right sense in the target language. so in English because we would never ever say this the only possible correct translation (not transliteration) can be 'i was born in january'.
I wrote "My birthday is in January" which it didn't like. Seems like a valid translation.
it works in Spanish too so it is quite all right. people shouldn't translate literally. De que mes eres? soy de abril. naci en abril.
I worry that some of you make this about perfecting rather than speaking a language. There is no real debate here you cannot be from January as has been said. Anyone saying that in English would only cause confusion so surely it is not worth defending?
Omg someone concerned about hearts and score rather than learning the language! Who cares about the hearts. I just want to speak italian!
I see your point and i (find i have to) agree, but aren't the hearts and the score also the triggers to keep us going?
Yeah, but we didn't start because we wanted to have fun. We wanted the least annoying and tedious way to fluency.
and what is wrong with enjoying it ? I, for one am having a lot of fun and wouldn't be as motivated if it was a chore.
Hearts mark incorrect answers. You need to be sure whether it is correct or not. If program is inconsistent, you get confused.
Ah, the mythical land of January. Strong are its women, beautiful are its men. How I miss its rolling seas and crystal clear hills.
When did sono become past tense. Certainly not taught in the lesson. You have to guess whats correct. Thats really not learning by guess work.
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I got it right, but put 'I am from January' and didn't understand what it meant. It has changed at the top now to 'born', and as it happens, they are right, as I was born in January!! Aren't they clever!!! I also don't care about the hearts and lingots, and never 'use' them. I just want to get a rough idea of the language, if not fluent, then enough to get me by if ever I visit Italy, which I hope I will one day.
I did a literal translation and then came to the comments to figure out what the heck it actually meant. not because I didn't want to take extra questions to get to the end of the lesson - but because I honestly had no flipping idea what the heck "I am from January" was possibly supposed to actually mean. now I feel stupid.
You shouldn't feel stupid, Isabella, but rather affirmed - because your sense of correct English is so much better than DL's.
Yes, I did exactly the same as you Isabella - and I don't feel stupid, just a bit frustrated that it accepts the nonsensical answer that you and I put down, and that it didn't give the real meaning of the sentence, but that we had to look on here.
"I am of January" haha....what?? Is this how you say you were born in January?
I was told the answer was "I am of January". That seems grammatically wrong for a sentence.
It is vital always to use the best translation in whatever language. So of course we learn "Io sono di gennaio". But we must translate that into English as "I was born in January", or "My birthday is in January", not some gobbledygook.
"I am of January"?? This is a ridiculous sentence for Duolingo...its the best you had? How about Sono nato?
in the south and in Sicily it is said "io sono nato di novembre" but the north dominates and country and we are learning northern Italian.
If you think this sentence is ridiculous, all I can say is "You ain't seen nothin' yet!"
If that is what Italians say then that is what we have to learn. We are translating meaning not words.
Well, as per my italian learing so far, what I would say is "Io sono nato nel mese di ottobre - I was born in the month of october". Confirm if it's right.
Swahili helped me understand this one, in swahili you say "mimi ni wa Januari" which literally translates as "I am of January" glad to see Italians apply this too
I can't believe "I am from January" was accepted as correct...this would only be a legitimate phrase if the speaker is a time traveller haha.
Well, using some logic, I can see that this phrase MUST mean "I was born in January" since each one of us is "from" a particular month. Other languages use words and word patterns differently than English, that's for sure!!!
These discussions are of no help if you worry about game playing and give that priority over trying to learn a language. I don't even know what a heart is, and this thread gives no help whatsoever.
I am not sure where YOUR priority is, whether game playing or language acquisition, but 'a heart' refers to Duolingo's previous system for completing a level. You started with 3 hearts, and lost one for each mistake. If you lost them all, you had to start over. As for this thread giving no help - what help are you requesting?
I can see the point of asking us to translate the English sentence into Italian, but there's no way to guess which of the several good English versions will be accepted. Usually DL objects to a tense change like this.
duolingo accepted my "I am from January" which was obviously a literal translation and makes not a jot of sense in English, so why is DL accepting it as correct
I am from Star system January, do not resist earthlings! (I know it means "i was born in January", but it also looks like "i come from january")
no clutter ... seriously ... if asked " What month are you born in?" Would your answer be any different than " I am born in January" Am is equally correct here. You could say I was born in January (referring to the birth) or I am born in January (referring to the month) ... Ok hair splitting, I admit, but "I am born in January" should be correct. Unless Italians say that with a different expression.
I am a January baby or I am what ever stay sign is correct but never would I say I am born in January, I was born in January.
《You are from January...???》Wonderful country! I've been there once!
I believe "Io sono" is present tense. I was corrected for translating it "I am" instead of "I was" born in January. So does that mean we should transliterate rather than give an exact word translation, so it makes sense in English?
DL does not translate the I sentence that is "I am (of the month) of January". But the time "was born" is correct, as "nascere" is "to be born", so your "I am born "means "io nasco", now, not "sono nato" present perfect of the verb nascere.
This is an idiom, so you can't translate it literally. As many have pointed out above, "I am of/from January" is not used in English. "Sono di gennaio" means that your birthday is in January, so you would say, "I was born," referring to an action in the past (being born). The Italian uses the present, like how you could say in English, "I am a Capricorn" (present), which would mean you were born (past) in December or January.
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At my age, adult, I wouldn't dream of saying "I am a January baby." "I was born in January" is much better.
I was taught to say "sono nata di gennaio" ... shouldn't both translations be right?
wasn't it 'sono nato a gennaio'? yes, if you are going from English to Italian.
GraceD0145: if you want to say 'I am born anew' that's ok, or 'I am born of light and darkness' that's ok. but if you mean January is the month of your birth, then you have to use past tense: 'I was born in january'. in Italian, one way is the idiom 'io sono di gennaio.'
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Can someone explain to me why the verb nato is not used here? I figured that this was one of those many idiomatic expressions that many languages have, but I am just curious. I too am doing the Italian on my phone, and have to place the example in google to get to this page. Thankfully I am also taking a class to help me understand the grammer and structure a bit better.
Sometimes i eant to quit this lessons because you say mistake but there is no mistake.
since this is an idiom the rules don't apply. if you translate it literally, it would be 'I am'.
this literally translates as "I am of january" so "I was born in january" must be idiomatic. It would be nice if these exercises indicated somehow that actually translating the passage wasn't going to do the job.
sono = am; sono nato/sono nata = was. In my humble opinion, "sono" would be correct for a newborn, less than 31 days old, born on 1 Jan who could speak during the month of his/her birth.
Either the statement is wrong or the translation. The level contains only Present Tense. If the English expression needs Past Tense then this example cannot be used for learning!
So is this accurate and common in spoken Italian regarding a person's birth?
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I wrote "i am born in January" and it corrected it to "i WAS born in January". Is sono also the past tense of 'am'? This is the first time so far I've seen a past tense
