"Le donne hanno cinture sulle gonne."
Translation:The women have belts on their skirts.
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415
"sulle gonne " means "on the skirts" the translation is "on their skirts" - where is "their"? it is same as in "tasca" ?
Sorry for being a little bit out of topic, we know that the word "sulle" is always followed by the plural feminine noun. But once I've ever listened to the Italian aria "Il Baccio" (click: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=24irhyFrQNI) which is the first lyric says, "Sulle...sulle labbra". Shouldn't it become "Sulle...sulle labbre" since we have known that "labbra" is a singular word? Mille grazie!^^
1092
if Duolingo has the translation as The women have belts on their skirts - why wouldn't that be Le donne hanno cinture sulle loro gonne.
I do think that this is incorrect since there is no possession mentioned here. Some more appropriately worded phrases to indicate the possessive would be: "le donne hanno gonne con cinture" = skirts with belts / "Le donne hanno gonne con cintura" = belted skirts / "Le gonne delle donne hanno le cinture" = skirts have belts.
It is missing "loro gonne" in my opinion. And if you try to translate: "The women have belts on OUR skirts" YOU GET "Le donne hanno le cinture sulle NOSTRE gonne"
Although its tempting to think a strictly literal translation should always be one of the accepted answers, it often doesn't make sense. For an extreme example, if someone wrote, "We just returned from visiting Our Lady", basically everyone would recognize that as a bad translation, even though "Notre Dame" literally translates to "Our Lady".
In other words, you should translate the intended (or understood) meaning in a way that's idiomatic to target language. (Converting meaning trumps using a literal word-for-word translation basically every time; after all, you're translating a sentence, not just a list of words.)
In this sentence, the Italian version means there is possession, even though it doesn't say "their". So the best translation conveys that meaning.
Anyway, I hope that was helpful.
241
The fact though is that there is - or should be - a difference between possession and no possession, even in Italian. For example, what if the women are working in a clothing store and they put belts on the mannequins' dresses? Then it wouldn't be 'their dresses', but just 'dresses'.
I took 'cinture sulle gonne' to mean that the belts were part of the skirts, since in English, the phrase 'belts on their skirts' would mean that the belts are attached. So I shortened it to 'belted skirts' which would also be correct in English, but it was marked wrong. Is there a difference that I'm missing, or is it just not programmed to accept that?
1207
What is the difference between "sullo" and "sulle"? I see that the word sulle is followed by a feminine noun, however I am not sure when to use sullo?
Thank you!
1013
I would like to know why in this instance you don't use the definite article le before the belts? Yet is used in the sugar instance.
493
"women" was not one of the words to select! I selected "The Gives Have Belts On Skirts" and it was correct!