"Sono biscotti al cioccolato."
Translation:They are chocolate cookies.
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I used the word biscuit and got flagged as incorrect, when thats my country's word for it
Duolingo is an American company, and over here a biscuit is something very different.
Un biscotto di cioccolato would mean the biscuit was literally made of chocolate rather than having chocolate added to it.
I'm confused as to what the translation for "al" actually is. Is it "of the"?
i think it's used more in this context as an expression, something that can't be translated literally
Yes.
al literally means "to the"
But it can be used in expressions where English would use: "of", "of the", "with the", and so on. It's one of those things that you just have to learn whether the correct prepositions to use is 'a', 'di', "in", etc... because they don't always map to their English equivalent.
This sentence (Sono bicotti al cioccolato) is probably closest to the English meaning of They are cookies with chocolate (ie cookies with chocolate bits in them). With is usually 'di' in Italian. But you use "al and not "del" (del = di + il) in this situation just because...
(Actually I don't know if there's a reason why. When I studied Italian at uni we were told you just have to learn them - sometimes they match up to the English choice, sometimes they don't)
Why can it not be "I am chocolate cookies" what do I say when I am chocolate cookies?? Io sono i biscotti al cioccolato??
Wouldn't it be correct English to translate it "It's the chocolate cookies" (although cookies are plural)? I'm not a native English speaker.
In British English, maybe. In the USA, biscuits are something very, very different. Think of savory scones.
If "Sono" is at the beginning does that mean "They are"? When would it be "The cookies are chocolate"?
I biscotti sono cioccolato, or something more of that form. Kind of similar to the difference in English.
In Italian, subject pronouns are mostly optional. You can almost always tell from the verb whether the subject is 1st, 2nd, or 3rd person, singular or plural.
"Essere" is irregular and the "io" conjugation is the same as the "loro" conjugation, but since it's a linking verb, the subject complement in the predicate must agree with the subject. Since "biscotti" is plural, the subject must also be plural (also, context tells you it's very unlikely that someone is saying "I am chocolate cookies").
https://www.italian-verbs.com/italian-verbs/conjugation.php?parola=essere
How come "chocolate" is not in plural as well when cookies are?
"Biscotti ai chocolata" instead of "biscotti al cioccolato"?
Because "chocolate" is not an adjective, it is a noun. Only adjectives change to reflect nouns. Nouns do not change with other nouns.
This is teaching you that sometimes it is best to not have a subject pronoun at all.
Isnt it io sono and voi siamo. So they are isnt io sono farfallebut voi siamo farfalle?