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- "Arrivate quando finite!"
73 Comments
I return to the same place in the DL forest and I still have problems with this sentence. It must mean "Come when you've finished", but I seem to remember that DL does not accept "arrivare" to mean "to come". Why hobble us with this unnatural English?
(Actually it should mean "Come when you finish", there's no past tense.).
We'd really say" come when you have finished", because the idea is to finish first and then come. Languages just vary in how they use tenses. We are less precise than most when we say when this, as French people, for example, might say "when you will have finished" because in fact this is in the future!
1231
Arrivate = (you al) arrive!
quando = when
finite = (you all) finish
Arrive, when, you (all) finish! ~
Come when you'r done!
- 123
This translation into english is a nonsense and impossible. Should one be doing something at a spercific place one could leave when finished. It would be impossible to arrive at a second place when you're done as one has to travel between the two places and this means moving between two which in turn takes a period of time. The translalation appears to suggest that this movement is completed in a instant and could only be achieved if one was already at the place of arrival, So you would not be arriving if one was already there. Just nonsense. The Italian sentence must mean something slightly different.
- 1231
I think DL is trying to teach us the right phrase in Italian but not necessarily all ways this can be phrased in English.
I would perhaps rather say 'Come when you're done' or 'Come when you have finished (whatever it is they are doing)'
I have not tested this but perhaps DL would approve something closer to this?
I suspect that come would be vieni quando finite... arrivate is arrive... you can try reporting it and duo might start to accept it.. but sometimes they do insist on the more literal translation
I think part of the problem with DL sentences is simply that they're in a context-less vacuum, and this makes them sound especially weird.
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"At what time should I arrive? "
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"Arrive when you finish"
this is definitely not as common as come but it's not a grammatical error.
I am a native English speaker. I have NEVER in my life heard, read or said "Arrive when you finish" before seeing it HERE in DUOLINGO. I love the Owl but this sentence is NOT modern spoken English and needs to be changed.
I translated as "Come when you're finished" and got marked wrong--- but that's how a native English speaker (US) would say that.
- 1667
Except in English you'd more likely say, "arrive after you finish", since the internal context suggests you are somewhere else doing something, so you have to finish it there, then leave that place in order to arrive at the speaker's place.
The problem is that the sentence just doesn't make sense in English.
Jeffrey, I agree with you and would have given the same explanantion. I would also say that "come when you've finished" is a better translation, but DUO is wants to show how the verb "arrivare" is used here in the Imperative form. To figure that out is not quite easy and need more learning than DUO gives in his examples. A search in the Internet is very useful :)
To me "Arrive when you finish" or "Arrive after you finish" are both perfectly natural in this context.
Yes, in context it is perfctly clear. However, just as we have to read DL'"mind", so does the owl have to read mine. My snswer wss gramaticaly corect and the translation was actually fine, I simply did not use the exact words DL was looking for. Learning a language in a vacuum has this effct. I dont especially like it, but that is what I must deal with. I do know that my Italian has improved vastly snd hopefully will continue to do so. When last in Italy, after s gew days I could hold limited conversations with old dialect. When I get my citizendhip, my daughter is flying me over to swear in in my Nonna's village and my Italian may be a bit halting, but I will be able to communicate much better than before. Especially as I've absolutely no one left with which to pracise!
If you translation was correct but not exactly what DUO was looking for, report it by clicking the button at the bottom... I have reported dozens and they usually fix it and send me a note saying that they did.
- 414
Absolutely agree; one cannot finish whatever it is they're doing and arrive simultaneously, understanding that it will take some time to get to wherever it is they need to arrive - unless they have figured out how to instantaneously transport themselves. this is not natural English. One could say instead, "Arrive after you have finished."
Should it be? I'm not at all sure, because it seems a dead ringer for that annoying futuro anteriore tense: arrivate quando avrete finito, literally "come when you will have finished".
So I tried "Arrive whenever you finish" as being more correct than "when you finish" and since DL specifies whenever in the translation for "Vieni quando vuoi!". But it gives an error for that too.
DL apparently doesn't like consistency!
- 2500
Me too, I am very tired of DL not understanding the differens between arrive and come. Just because it means the same in Italian 'arrivare' does not mean that it is interchangable in English. I am not a native speaker of English, but my language (Swedish, which has many resemblances with English) also has two different words for 'arrivare', one is like 'Arrive at the airport', and that is not the same thing as to ask someone to 'come, when they are ready'. You just can't ASK someone to 'ARRIVE', You Witness someone arrive. Am I wrong??
You're right. If you're telling someone to come look at something, for example, you wouldn't tell them to arrive to look at it. "Coming in" and "arriving" can be used interchangeably, as in "the plane is arriving" and "the plane is coming in". But if "the plane is coming", it could be anywhere along the route. Although you could say "the guests are arriving at noon" and "the guests are coming at noon", the latter suggests more than simply showing up on the doorstep at the appointed hour.
How about "Come when you are done"? That is much more colloquial and common in English (at least in the U.S.) than "arrive when you finish"!
- 1037
"Come when you're done" accepted from me. To my mind "arriving" is the passive result of actively "coming".
What makes this "when you HAVE finished" instead of "when you ARE finished"?
Don't know, it's a crap sentence. I don't think it makes sense in English or Italian. We need an expert -- viaggiatore dove sei?
- 483
Well, technically in English to say "you ARE finished" means you're dead, done, complete -- YOU are the object completed. As with most languages, in English the verb "to be" is used to indicate reflexive action, whereas the verb "to have" is the auxiliary for objective action. However, most English speakers aren't too fussy about this in spoken language.
Are you a US or UK speaker? because this is not the case in America. The real difference between these two in Am English is that one describes a quality and the other describes an action. https://www.grammarly.com/answers/questions/16407-i-am-finished-vs-i-have-finished/
Interesting comment! I have never noticed this, nor thought about it either!
why isn't it correct "Come when you finish?" It sound better than "Arrive when you finish"
I want to notice you that we Italians also first finish and them come (veniamo), and that the verb 'arrivare' here sounds wrong even to us. I beg you to excuse my bad English, I hope that you can understand all the same.
In Manchester, When you are done = when you are fully cooked OR when you are defeated OR when you are cheated. OR it means you've been watching a lot of American TV shows :) btw does anybody ever FIX anything on this platform? I spent over a year working through the PC version, grumbling my way from one piece of dodgy English to the next - only to find that this version is still riddled with the same mistakes. Turnaround time for fixes in Italian there was good - here, not so much?
- 1667
"done" in British English also has that catch-all, end-of-a-sentence backwards reference to some action, a usage which does not appear in American English unaccompanied by some other token of the reference, such as a pronoun or determiner.
Example: BE: "He ate the cake. I never would have done." AE: "He ate the cake. I never would have done that."
In BE, it seems to have evolved from something where you could simply insert "that" at the end, and it made sense, into a modern kind of sometimes fuzzy, indeterminate way to conclude a thought. We do the same here in the US with phrases like "and all that stuff".
Oddly, I first started noticing it when I read the Harry Potter books. I don't know how I missed it before. I read several Jane Austin books in college, and recently re-read them - and there is was: the bare "done" way back in the earlier 1800s.
- 349
I used "arrive when you are finished" and was told it was wrong, that is should "arrive when you are done" -- and then come on this discussion to see at the top that the correct answer is..ta-dahhhh "Arrive when you finish!" Um....mine was right.....
DL : we talk at the second personne right? why "arrivate" and not "arrivati"? thank you
Like you say in english DL, the concernad person is you!!! Why it is not "arrivati quando finiti"? I do not undrerstand!!!
Duo's verbs are both 2nd person plural, correct, and you have used two inflected past participles, wrong.
- 327
This doesn't make sense in any context does it? It should be "Come when you have finished."
- 721
I don't think 'Arrive when you finish' would ever be used in English. 'Come when you finish' is the usual phrase.
The natural sentence in English would be "come when you are finished". "Arrive when you finish" is not good English, but the first option is not accepted.
imperativo presente [arrivàre] = present imperative [to arrive]
arrìva [non arrivàre] (tu) .......... arrive [don't arrive] (informal, singular)
arrìvi (egli) .......... arrive (formal, singular)
arriviàmo (noi) .......... let's arrive
arrivàte (voi) .......... arrive (informal, plural)
arrìvino (essi) .......... arrive (formal, plural)
Arrivate quando finite!
A large number of Americans would translate this sentence as : Come when you finish!
I don't wish to nag, but I would like to remind everyone to please REPORT, also!♥
