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- "Gli elefanti mangiano pane."
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It also depends on the first letter of the next word, if I'm not mistaken. For instance: Gli elefanti vs. i bicchieri (the elephants vs. the glasses) gli is for plural and vowel and i is for consonant. Please let me know if this is correct and helps.
If the singular article is 'il,' it changes to 'i.' 'lo' and 'l'' change to 'gli'
i is for the word that starts with a consone ex: c and gli is for the word that starts with a vowal
Rules for the definite article:
https://i.imgur.com/aJ7Qlgb.jpg
Rules for the indefinite article:
Masculine
https://i.imgur.com/ioiRcSS.png
Feminine
https://i.imgur.com/7WZMfoO.png
I don't know what you mean by "improper" consonants. Do you mean the so-called "impure s"?
lo/gli is used for masculine nouns when the next word begins with:
- s+any consonant
- gn
- pn
- ps
- x
- y
- z
And there I was thinking the elephants were invading Ireland. Seems they are thundering across Italy as well...
Is 'The elephants eat the bread' not correct? There seems to be some inconsistencies as to whether or not the article is acceptable, unless there are some rules I'm not aware of.
I think it's because it says "mangiano pane," not "magiano il pane." If there's no article in the original, you shouldn't have to add one!
I believe it's also because here they aren't talking about a specific bread, so the is too precise.
I too asked this question. I've never heard of an elephant eating bread and I couldn't find anything about local practices, like the myth we have about elephants loving peanuts. There is a type of pastry called elephant ear bread, but that's the closest reference I could find. This sentence is impractical. I'm never going to say something like that unless I write a children's novel in Italian about an elephant who loves bread...
Similar to the "the men write in the sugar" that I've seen multiple times
The elephants eat the bread should be correct, it would be in other examples!
In Italian the definite article is a bit different: it can be used to indicate a general category. That's why sometimes you'll see the article present in the Italian sentence but not in the English one.
For singular nouns:
LO: for all masculine nouns beginning with s+consonant or z.
IL: for all other masculine nouns starting with a consonant.
LA: with feminine nouns starting with any consonant.
L’: before masculine or femmenine nouns beginning with a vowel.
I don't think it matters if they do or not. They are merely teaching a sentence
I would like to take this example as one of many which occur across DL Italian. If I take a closely related language, French, which I know and speak well, you would never say "Les éléphants mangent pain". That would sound like a strained anglicism. You would say "Les éléphants mangent le pain", or at least "Les éléphants mangent du pain". A noun in this context is always preceded by an article.
Is this not so in Italian? Or is this "bevono acqua" not "bevono l'acqua" construction really proper Italian?
Can an Italian native speaker advise?
My native language is English, but I was told that the use of definite articles in statements such as this are similar to how it is in English, except opposite.
In English, a general statement of habit omits the definite article: I eat bread. I drink water. In Italian, a general statement of habit uses the definite article: Mangio il pane. Bevo l'acqua.
In English, a statement referring to a specific instance uses the definite article: I eat the bread. I drink the water. In Italian, a statement referring to a specific instance omits the definite article: Mangio pane. Bevo acqua.
for a second i got mixed up with hindi and i rote water because pane in hindi means water
i litteraslly said that my microphone does not work yet they kept on making these questions for me. hmph!
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You can got to settings and turn off speaking exersizes and when it works again you can turn it back on.
errot on system keep typing exactly what answer in needs and keeps comming back incorrect!
I wrote exactly the correct answer and the robot said I was wrong ...
Duo glitches sometimes. If you're positive you didn't make any typos, next time this happens flag it and select "My answer should have been accepted."
Thank you for your advice, which I will gladly follow next time.
So you can learn verb conjugation and the intricacies of the definite article.
I'm so confused, "I wrote the elephants eat bread" yet says I used the wrong word? what?!?!
"are eating bread" IS acceptable. Italian doesn't have the present continuous tense, but that doesn't mean it can't be translated into that tense in appropriate contexts!
It does have present continuous, but it's just not used as often. It uses the verb "stare".
Gli elefanti stanno mangiando pane.
Most -- not all, but most -- verbs in Italian are regular, which means if you know what suffix the infinitive ends with, you can apply a simple template and know how to conjugate it.
Mangiare is a regular -are verb, which means you can apply the first template:
https://i.imgur.com/8atYu1Y.png
MANGIARE
io mangio
tu mangi
lui/lei mangia
noi mangiamo
voi mangiate
loro mangiano
The stem already has an i at the end, so it gets absorbed into the "tu" suffix. There is no double-i verb ending.
Does anyone besides me think that there are more useful sentances that could teach us the same language rules?
Ciao! (Hi i meant) The elephants dont eat bread since they live in wlid! They could eat bread OF only they are in the zoo in their cage!! I hope this helps!
When i say gli elefanti mangiano pane its incorret but when duolingo says it is..
Then you need to flag the lesson and report "My answer should be accepted."
There is absolutely no consistency when it comes to 'pane'. Sometimes it's 'il pane'and sometimes 'pane'. Can anyone explain, please?
It doesn't matter whether elephants actually eat bread or monkeys actually read books. Duolingo is teaching us grammar and vocabulary, giving us the tools to put our own sentences together.
