79 Comments
It tells me "la tigre beve acqua" is the correct answer and won't accept "la tigre beve l'acqua" as a correct response. The reverse happened a couple of questions before this one.
Both are correct in Italian. It's all hearing here so if you don't here l'acqua just put acqua
Same here. That's frustrating because I purposefully added it since the previous question said it.
What's the difference between l'aqua and aqua? I know, l' is an article (means 'the'), but sometimes it is used, sometimes not. Why?
1947
In cases like this, Italian uses the definite article the opposite way that English does.
General case: I drink water. Bevo l'acqua.
Specific instance: I drink the water. Bevo acqua.
Apparently we were wrong :) . In Italian "tigre" is a feminine noun. If one needs to clarify one can say la tigre maschio (the male tiger). Tigre è un sostantivo femminile. Allora si dice LA tigre, e se si vuò precisare si dice la tigre maschio
Tigre es un sustantivo masculino en español. Me sorprendió que fuera femenino. Especialmente cuando se considera lo semajantes que son las lenguas.
- 647
Well, as an italian native speaker I would like to explain that in italian the words "tigre" and "scimmia" are always feminine words. If you want to specify the gender, you have to say "la tigre maschio" or "la tigre femmina", and yes, Rae.F is right when he/she says that native speakers play with their language. In fact, "Il tigre" is only a wordplay, used in an advertisement too. Just to know it, sometimes the male monkey is referred as "lo scimmione", but it's mainly sarchastic.
Does tigre always take "LA"? I believe it doesn't. I'm sure I've seen IL tigre, so why does the italian sentence say LA tigre, and doesn't accept "the tigress" as the correct translation? I'd love it if somebody would explain.
- 63
There's even an Italian film named "Il tigre": http://it.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Il_tigre
That's weird.
- 1947
Weird? I dunno. Native speakers are always playing games with their language. Think of puns and other types of wordplay. There could be some subtle thing being communicated there that native Italian speakers would pick right up on.
In Portuguese and Spanish, it is possible that someone gets a moniker from a different grammatical gender. In this case, the moniker "adopts" in the person's gender. This seems to be the case here: tigre is feminine but the person who got the nickname is a man, so now the noun is treated in this specific example as masculine.
It can be a bit confusing but it is not unusual in more informal situations.
If this were plural and said the tigers* drink water, would you say tigri even though it is a feminine noun? As in, do you only add an 'e' to the end (for plural) when it ends in an 'a'? Or would multiple tigers be le tigre?
Why can't it be the tigress drinks water, when the sentence in italian has the definite article "la" and is on the meanings of the word?
- 1947
"La tigre" is one of those exceptions (like "la scimmia") where the species just is feminine, grammatically, and does not imply that the particular animal is female.
- 1947
I do. Italian and English indicate the general case vs. the specific case in opposite ways. In English, "He drinks water" makes a general statement about his hydration habits, whereas "He drinks the water" means he's drinking a very specific serving of water. In Italian, "Lui beve l'acqua" makes a general statement about his hydration habits, whereas "Lui beve acqua" means he's drinking a very specific serving of water.
Okay I got that point. In that case though "l'acqua" would be wrong.
Here on Duolingo I learned that it is very common in Italian to use an article even if it is non specific. ...I am a little confused now
Ithelps to read the words of the lesson before you start it. It usually trells you everything new
If it is feminine, why does it end in '-e' - take serpente - thats masculine
- 1947
It's just one of those exceptions you have to memorize. No language is perfectly regular.
- 1947
Because it's one of those exceptions. Singular is la tigre, plural is le tigri.
- 1947
In Italian, the entire species "tiger" is grammatically feminine. It has nothing to do with whether that particular tiger is male or female.
- 1947
According to a native speaker in this comment section, "tigre" is feminine.
atleast DL had not gone violent this time by writing tiger eats the deer.. :P
In Portuguese also, tigre is a masculine noun. This is gonna be confusing. ..
Are there not different noun endings (except plurals) in Italian? Like is word order the only way you can tell what's the subject and what's the direct object?
- 1947
That's right. Italian does not mark the accusative (except maybe some pronouns).
Press the pic of mic and then press button to play accent :D i dont do it but.....you can
- 1947
This chart breaks down how regular verbs are conjugated in the present tense indicative.
I don't know the difference between the two -IRE conjugation patterns.
bere is almost regular, at least in the present indicative. But for some reason the stem gains an ev. It's likely the infinitive used to be bevere.
BERE
bev-o
bev-i
bev-e
bev-iamo
bev-ete
bev-ono
I put the whole sentence correct except I put acqua instead of putting in water
Is there a rule to masculine and feminine articles in italian? Or is it like portuguese?
- 1947
The rules in Italian are more complicated than they are in Portuguese.
Portuguese definite articles:
o = masculine singular
os = masculine plural
a = feminine singular
as = feminine plural
Italian definite articles:
il = masculine singular
lo = masculine singular if the next word begins with s+consonant, other consonant clusters, z, or y
l' = masculine singular if the next word begins with a vowel
i = masculine plural for the singular il
gli = masculine plural for the singular lo or l'
la = feminine singular
l' = feminine singular if the next word begins with a vowel
le = feminine plural
https://ciaoitaliablog.wordpress.com/classes/italian-definite-article/
Is there actually some rule when it comes to masculine and feminine words? For example, in French, words ending with an e (e.g. legume) are generally feminine. Is there some kind of rule for Italian as well, or is it all random?
- 1947
Italian is a lot more predictable than French when it comes to the grammatical gender of its nouns. I'm not saying it's perfectly regular (it has exceptions, as all natural languages do), but it has a mostly reliable pattern, unlike the "e" thing in French, which is a myth -- You're thinking of how the otherwise identical feminine form of a word will be spelled with an extra e.
Generally, words that end in
-o = masculine, singular
-i = masculine, plural
-a = feminine, singular
-e = feminine, plural
- 1947
Not all nouns are perfectly regular. Sometimes a noun will end in -e in the singular and -i in the plural and you just need to memorize whether it's masculine or feminine.
- 1947
Only humans, common pets, and common farm animals have grammatical gender to match their biological sex. All other animals have one grammatical gender for the whole species.
