"It is a book."
Translation:É um livro.
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I think they don't consider that one correct because that would be the translation for "this is a book".. The literal translation for "it is a book" does not need 'isto' :)
Because that literally translates as 'the is a book'. But the what? Remember o/a and os/as mean 'the'.
how is é used? sometimes it's "it is" and at other times "is".. of course in context you could differentiate the meanings but it's a little confusing at times..
It's used to mean 'it is' when at the beginning of the sentence and in a context where you've already stated the subject. Ex: "I got you a gift. It is a book." Here the second sentence would translate as 'É um livro' and the 'it' would refer to the gift. You only assume é means 'it is' when used at the beginning of a sentence.
When used in the middle of a sentence, it just means 'is'. Ex: "He is a man." Here the sentence would translate as 'Ele é um homem'. The other difference really is that in the first example a pronoun isn't specified so the default assumption is that you're referring to an 'it'. In the second case the pronoun 'he' IS specified.
I got it wrong and it told me "Ele é um livro" was the correct answer. I've not learned "it is" yet, so I clicked the comments to find "É um livro" is correct. Very confusing excercise.