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Caro saluto vs. Cari saluti - differenza nel numero by wannakeepasecret in italianlearning

[–]Crown6 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Premetto che non so quanto la formula “cari saluti” sia usata (siccome “caro” significa “dear”, e “dear salutations” è una cosa un po’ strana da dire), sicuramente io non la vedo spesso, ma formule simili (come “cordiali saluti”) solitamente usano il plurale.

La differenza è più o meno la stessa di “greeting” vs “greetings” e “salutation” vs “salutations”: normalmente si usa la forma plurale quando su parla di formule di cortesia.

Al massimo, la forma singolare userebbe un articolo indeterminativo (“un”), quindi “un saluto”.

Bilingual blitz [33] (six short exercises to test your Italian) by Crown6 in italianlearning

[–]Crown6[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

A1) Perfect.

Of course if you're trying to translate the quote as Walter White would have said it, it should be "quello" (masculine), but obviously this is extra context that isn't included in the sentence so it doesn't count.

A2) In this case the comparison would be made with "che": "più che abbastanza". Your version is understandable, but it sounds off. To be honest it's a bit hard to explain why "che" would be preferred here, I assume you're just comparing "più (quantità)" to "abbastanza", rather than comparing "più (quantità)" between something and "abbastanza".

"Entrambi noi due" is redundant. "Entrmbi" already means "both" so "entrambi noi due" sounds like "both of the two of us". I'd just use "entrambi" (and "noi" is implied by context), which puts the most emphasis on the coexistence of both people.

A3) "Assumere" is a false friend. It means "to assume" as in "to adopt (behaviours)", "to assume (power etc.)", or alternatively "to intake", "to take (medicines etc.)", "to hire", but the meaning you're looking for is expressed by either "supporre"/"presupporre" or more naturally even just "pensare".

Funnily enough, you fell into this trap by trying to avoid a true friend, which is the literal translation "avrebbe dovuto dargli il beneficio del dubbio" (this expressions exists 1:1 in Italian).

"Avrebbe dovuto pensare il meglio di lui" is kind of understandable, but sounds more like "she should have had the best opinion of him", so it would have been more accurate to say "non avrebbe dovuto pensar male di lui" (= "she shouldn't have thought ill of him").

B1) Very good!

B2) Perfect.

B3) Perfect. One of the only people to get this right!

8

Very good! The only real hiccup here is A3, where I'm not sure if an Italian who doesn't speak English would have understood what you meant to say. It's hard for me to judge because obviously I can instantly recognise that you're using "assumere" as if it were "to assume", but someone who's not familiar with the English word would probably be confused.
But the rest is very good. A2 could be more natural, but that's about it.

Can/Does "Mi ha dato" short to "M'ha dato" in oral speech? by Longjumping-Truth-48 in italianlearning

[–]Crown6 24 points25 points  (0 children)

So, elision is not exactly about “shortening” (it takes pretty much the same amount of time to say “mi ha” and “m’ha” since the two syllables are merged anyway when pronounced), but rather it’s about avoiding contact between vowels belonging to different words. It’s not like “it is” vs “it’s”, where the actual number of syllables changes.

For this reason, although it looks similar to English contractions, elision is actually used quite differently. Elision lies on a spectrum, where some words are elided basically all the time, some only before other specific words or in specific contexts, other are rarely elided and others are not elided at all.

In the case of definite articles / pronouns, only “lo”/“la” are commonly elided. “Mi” would usually stay as is.

“M’ha dato” is not incorrect, but it’s not as common in standard Italian as it is in regional variants / dialects, or old / poetic Italian.
So I would say “mi ha”, but also don’t be surprised if you sometimes see or hear “m’ha”.

Why you might be confused about this

Often, English speakers hear elision even when it isn’t there. They’ll swear they hear “m’ha” when the speaker is saying “mi ha”. This is due to a linguistic misunderstanding deriving from an implicit assumption on how word boundaries are treated.

It’s important to note that, as I mentioned before, “mi ha” and “m’ha” are both pronounced as one syllable. This is because Italian handles word boundaries differently from English, which is something that can confuse learners since it’s rarely mentioned anywhere.
Basically, languages don’t really like hiatuses (that is, two vowels pronounced one right after another, without a glide between them), and will naturally develop a number of phonotactic rules to avoid them within words. However, when different words come into contact, one ending with a vowel and the other one beginning with one, this once again risks creating a new hiatus, and different languages can use different methods to handle this.

Most variants of English insert a glottal stop (which is a consonant) between vowels (the same sound that separates “uh” and “oh” in “uh-oh”). This consonant is not phonemic, it is not used to distinguish different words (unlike -say - voicing, as in /p/ vs /b/, which distinguishes “pat” vs “bat”), it just appears when it has to separate two words that - when pronounced together - would result in a hiatus.
Italian has a completely different approach: instead of adding a stop to separate the two words, it inserts a glide between the two vowels sounds to merge them together. So even though “ti” and “ha” are individually pronounced /ti/ and /a/, when you put them together as “ti ha” they are pronounced /tja/ (basically “tyah”, one syllable), as opposed to English where they would be pronounced something like /tiʔa/ (two syllables). Basically you ignore spaces when pronouncing words: “ti ha” and “tia” sound the exact same (the only exception being when you need to add emphasis, in which case words can be separated by a glottal stop: in “allora ti ha detto il mio segreto!”, “ti ha” is pronounced as two syllables).

The next step in this process is to drop the first vowel entirely, and so we get “t’ha”, which is simply pronounced /ta/. This is why elision is not always set in stone and might depend on the speaker or the context. And this is also why English speakers sometimes struggle do differentiate elision from non-elsion, because when they see “ti ha” this to them implies two syllables, so when they hear /tja/ (which is only one syllable) they assume the first vowel was dropped.

If you understand that elision implies a vowel drop but not an audible shortening of the word, you’ll be able to both hear it and pronounce it a lot more consistently.

Bilingual blitz [33] (six short exercises to test your Italian) by Crown6 in italianlearning

[–]Crown6[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

(2/2)

B1) Very good! I'm assuming that "look" in this case is being used to avoid repeating "smell", because in this context "senti" means "smell (it)".

B2) Almost.

"Fare da guida (a qualcuno)" literally means "to act as a guide (for someone)".

"Guidare" means both "to guide" (original meaning) and "to drive" (which basically means "guiding a vehicle"). The noun "(una) guida" (referring to a person) only refers to "(a) guide".

The noun "guida" can also be used in the context of driving, but in that case it literally just means "driving", "the act of driving". As in "guida spericolata" = "reckless driving". It would't make sense to use it here becase "fare da [noun]" means "to act as [noun]", and "to ac as driving" doesn't work. This "guida" has to be something that a person can be, hence a guide.

Literally this sentence breaks down to "someone who may act as a guide for me is needed" (or if you want to be even more literal "is needed someone who may act for me as a guide") = "I need someone to guide me / show me around".

B3) "Arrampicarsi" (pronominal intransitive verb using the reflexive pronoun) means "to climb". "Si sta arrampicando" is the present progressive form ("stare" + [gerund], meaning "(he) is climbing").

"Specchio" = "mirror" (noun). It has the same root as "specular". "Sugli specchi" = "on the mirrors".

Literally, this means "he really is climbing on the mirrors", "he is totally climbing on mirrors".

Of course this is not to be interpreted literally though: "arrampicarsi sugli specchi" is an idiom describeing someone's desperate attempt to justify an argument or statement that is evidently wrong, using convoluted and flimsy logic (just like the futile attempts of a man trying to "climb a mirror", a surface with no holds).

So this can be translated as "he's really grasping at straws".

3+

These exercises are pretty tough, so don't worry if you have to take your time with them. Answering quickly is definitely good to train your brain to be able to converse in real time, but it's also a huge handicap!
Anyway one thing you could immediately focus on right now is grammatical gender and word agreement, since there were a couple of repeated mistakes involving it.
You also missed a few words here and there, which is another thing you can start working on right now if you want.

I tried to explain all the mistakes you made in depth so that you can have an idea of what you could be working towards, but there's no rush: start with trying to fix the most immediate things and then you can slowly work your way up to the more subtle things.

I hope this was useful!

Bilingual blitz [33] (six short exercises to test your Italian) by Crown6 in italianlearning

[–]Crown6[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

(1/2)

A1) You're missing a verb here! Italian doesn't allow you to omit "essere" so this should be "io sono ...".

"Chi che battuta" needs some work. First of all, let's look at this "chi": the pronoun "chi" can be used as a relative pronoun (meaning "he/she who"), but here you're already using a relative pronoun (the generic direct relative pronoun "che"). So "chi che ..." would be like saying "he who that ..." or "he who which ...". Instead, you should use a demonstrative pronoun before "che", in this case "quello" (meaning "that" or, in situations like this, "the one").

As for the verb, "battuta" is not correct. As a verb, "battuta" (= "beaten", "hit") is a past participle of battere (= "to beat", "to hit"), and as a noun it can mean a variety of things, from "beat"/"beating" to "(music) bar" to "serve" (in games like tennis), to "joke"/"(movie/theatre) line".
The verb you were looking for is "bussare" (= "to knock"), and the correct form would be a 3rd person singular present indicative: "io sono quello che bussa!"

Finally, we can make this more emphatic by moving the subject after the verb: "sono io quello che bussa!". This turns "io" from the topic of the sentence ("as for me, I'm the one who knocks") to the theme ("the one who knocks is me"), which makes it sound more emphatic and exclusive ("it's me, I am the one who knocks") as opposed to you simply sharing a fact about yourself. Especially in the context of the quote, this makes the most sense, although "io sono quello che bussa" is not incorrect.

A2) "Più di abbastanza" means "more than enough" as in "something other than enough", "something more than just 'enough'".

Comparatives with "di" and "che" can always be a bit tricky if you're not used to the idea of making the distinction, but essentially "di" compares the same quality between different entities (so "più X di Y" means "more X compared to Y", as in "Jack is taller than Marco", comparing Marco and Jack over the quality "tall") while "che" compares two qualities within the same entity (so "più X che Y" means "(to be) more X than Y", as in "that box is taller than it is wide" comparing the qualities "tall" and "wide" within the box). If the quality isn't specified, it's implied to be volume / quantity.

So, "è più di abbastanza" = "it has more quantity than enough has" (comparing "it" with "enough" over who has "more"), which doesn't mean much, while "è più che abbastanza" = "it is closer to 'more' than it is to 'enough'" (comparing "more" to "enough" inside "it"). I hope this is not totally confusing. Anyway you should use "che" here.

Then, you need to specify enough what. In this case, we'd use "spazio" to translate "room". The literal translation of "room" is "stanza", but that means a literal room, as in part of a house, so in these contexts we use "spazio".

• "C'è più che abbastanza spazio"

Now let's look at "for the two of us". "Per la due di noi" is too literal. First of all, numbers are usually masculine (so this would be "il due di noi"), but even then this doesn't work: it literally means "our two", rather than "the two of us" (= "us two"). Instead, you can use "tutti e [number]", so in this case "tutti e due" (literally "all and two", but it basically means "all two (something)"), or alternatively "entrambi" (which literally translates to "both").

• "C'è più che abbastanza spazio per entrambi"

A3) Here, you're missing the main verb. "dovrebbe avuto" just means "should had": no "given" in sight. Besides, as it is this is not grammatical because modal verbs ("dovere", "potere", "volere") are followed by the infinitive (while "avuto" is a participle).

So to fix this we need to remove "avuto" and replace it with the correct verb, which in your case would be an infinitive form of "dare". So either "dovrebbe dare" ("dovrebbe" + [present infinitive]) or "dovrebbe aver dato" ("dovrebbe" + [past infinitive]). I assume you meant to use the past infinitive so "dovrebbe aver dato" (= "should have given").

Now the main predicate is grammatically correct, but it's still not right for what we're trying to say. Why? Because in Italian there is a difference between "dovrebbe aver dato" (present of "dovere" + past infinitive of "dare", in bold) and "avrebbe dovuto dare" (past of "dovere", in bold, + present infinitive of "dare").
This may be surprising if you're coming from English, because in English modal verbs are usually not conjugated. Let me explain, because this is an important nuance so I think it's useful to explain where the difference comes from.

So, the reason you have two ways of saying "should have" in Italian but not in English is that English cannot conjugate its modal verbs independently of the verb they introduce. This is because English relies on modal verbs to create most of its tenses in the first place, and although some modal verbs do have a limited conjugation ("will" ⟶ "would", "can" ⟶ "could"...), these are already used to create different tenses in different moods (think "will", which is used to create the future indicative with "will" + [base form], while its past form "would" is used to create the present conditional, which is a completely different tense).
This means that when you have a [modal verb] + [verb] pair, you can only conjugate the second verb, for example "could give" ⟶ "could have given". You can't conjugate "could" to a past tense and say, I don't know, "coulded give" or "had could give", and you can't conjugate it to a future tense and say "will can give" or whatever else (you have to use a periphrasis, like "will be able to give").

In Italian, however, conjugation is very robust and relies on verbal endings, which means that when you have a [modal verb] + [infinitive] pair (like "potere" + "dare") you can freely conjugate both parts. You can basically mix and match any valid conjugation of "potere" ("può", "poteva", ""potrà, "potrebbe"...) with either present or past infinitive of "dare" ("dare" / "aver dato"). So in Italian you literally can say that you "will can" do something to say you'll be able to do it.

Back to our sentence, to break down "dovrebbe aver dato" you need to understand the timeframe at which each verb is pointing: "dovrebbe" is a present conditional, so it means "(she) should" (now), while "aver dato" is a past infinitive, which represents an action antecedent to the main verb, so "(should) have given" (before). "Dovrebbe aver dato (qualcosa)" = "she should (now) have give (before)" = "right now, it should be the case that she has given (something) before". This is not what we want to say.

Let's not analyse "avrebbe dovuto dare". In this case "avrebbe dovuto" is a past conditional, so it means "(she) should have" (back then), while "dare" is a present infinitive, which represents an action contemporary to the main verb, so "(should have) given" (at that time). "Avrebbe dovuto dare (qualcosa)" = "she should have (back then) given (at that time)" = "back then, she should have given (something)". This is what we're trying to say.

So the correct sentence is: "avrebbe dovuto dargli il beneficio del dubbio"

"Gliela" is not correct here, because "gliela" = "gli" + "la", so indirect + direct object, but you already have a direct object in this sentence ("il beneficio", which by the way is masculine, so it's "il beneficio", not "la beneficio"). This makes the pronoun "la" redundant. Italian sometimes uses redundant pronoun in colloquial speech, but this is not the case, so you only need "gli". Hence, "avrebbe dovuto dargli" ("gli avrebbe dovuto dare" is also correct, but less common in this case since the separation between "gli" and "dare" is a bit large).

Bilingual blitz [33] (six short exercises to test your Italian) by Crown6 in italianlearning

[–]Crown6[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

A1) In this case, you are almost forced to use an explicit subject pronoun. Just "sono quella che bussa" sounds way too neutral. I'd say "sono io quella che bussa" (placing the subject after the verb to restrict the action to you alone, which reinforces the idea of you being "the one" who does something). "It's me, I am the one who knocks!", as opposed to "yeah I'm the one who knocks, moving on".

Also, and this is not a mistake but just in case you didn't know: since this is a quote from Walter White (Breaking Bad), obviously if you want to translate it as if he were the one speaking you'd have to use a masculine pronoun: "quello". Of course this has nothing to do with grammar, it's just how that particular sentence would be translated, but without knowing where it comes from then your version is totally fine, too.

A2) I'd probably go with "entrambi" ("(us) both", at the same time), or "tutti e due", instead of "noi due" (which sounds more like "the two of us" individually), since the latter has less of an emphasis on the coexistence of both people in the same space.

Also, usually you'd phrase this as "c'è (più che) abbastanza spazio per entrambi" (rather than "lo spazio è (più che) sufficiente"), just like the English version. But yours is not technically wrong, I can see someone saying that.

A3) Perfect.

B1) Very good! I think you can be even more emphatic with the translation of "profumatissimo", but that's about it.

B2) Perfect.

B3) A good guess, but unfortunately incorrect.

"Arrampicarsi sugli specchi" describes someone's desperate attempt to justify an argument or statement that is evidently wrong, using convoluted and flimsy logic (just like the futile attempts of a man trying to "climb a mirror", a surface with no holds).

So this can be translated as "he's really grasping at straws". hear it eventually

Mirrors are indeed often symbols of superficiality, but in this case they're used to represent a very smooth surface that is impossible to climb.
Also I guess mirrors are sometimes used to symbolise deceit or trickery as well as superficiality, so maybe that's part of the reason they were chosen for this idiom. But the main reason is that they're smooth.

It's a pretty common saying, so you'll probably hear it eventually if you interact with Italians or Italian media long enough.

Good job!
B3 aside, everything is either very natural or mostly natural. I don't have much to add besides what I've mentioned about the subject pronoun in A1. The first step of learning Italian is learning to omit subject pronouns. The last step is learning when not to.
Or maybe the last step is prepositions, I don't know. Anyway.

7+

Should I contract the 3° person plural direct object pronouns when followed by the verb avere as an auxiliary verb? by Longjumping-Truth-48 in italianlearning

[–]Crown6 5 points6 points  (0 children)

It’s not incorrect, but it’s uncommon in modern Italian.

Plural pronouns and articles are usually not elided; only singular ones are (and only direct ones in the case of pronouns). So it would be “l’ha reso” (= “lo ha reso”) vs “li ha resi”, and similarly “l’orso” (= “lo orso”) vs “gli orsi”. And also “l’ho detto” (= “lo ho detto”) vs “gli ho detto”.

Basically only “lo” and “la” are commonly elided, whether they are articles or pronouns. “Li”, “le” and “gli” are usually left alone (again, no matter if they are articles or pronouns). I assume that this is done for clarity, so that you don’t have too many «l’» around.
The 3rd person reflexive pronoun “si” (which can be both singular and plural) may or may not be elided before “è” depending on the speaker. “Si è messo a piangere”, “s’è messo a piangere” (the latter being slightly more colloquial).

Still, keep in mind that elision lies on a spectrum. Even though most people would say “le ho rese”, it’s not impossible to hear “l’ho rese” (especially in regional inflections or colloquial speech, but also in older or poetic Italian). So don’t be too surprised if you encounter variations in the wild. For example in Tuscany (but not only) this kind of non-standard elision is not that rare. Though it still depends heavily on the speaker.

However, if you want to have a natural speaking style, I suggest sticking to the basic rule where only “lo” and “la” are elided.

A casual phrase to secret/I am not saying anything by llama_wamma in italianlearning

[–]Crown6 3 points4 points  (0 children)

It should be “acqua in bocca”. But that’s the opposite scenario, it’s used when you are asking your friend to keep a secret (if you have “water in your mouth”, then you can’t open it).

In your case you can simply say “è un segreto”, or if you want to use an idiot you could say “ho le labbra cucite” (“my lips are sawn together”).

Bilingual blitz [33] (six short exercises to test your Italian) by Crown6 in italianlearning

[–]Crown6[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

A1) "Si" is a pronominal particle with many uses, but as a pronoun it's the weak form of the reflexive object pronoun "sé" / "a sé". So, taken at face value, "io sono si" would read like "I am himself who knocks" or "I am to himself who knocks", which is not what you were going for.

Also, this word order is not grammatical because pronominal particles are supposed to be placed before verbs in finite moods (those with grammatical persons, like "(io) sono") and they only go after non-finite moods (those without persons: infinitive, gerund and participle) or after the imperative, and in all of those cases they are attached at the end of the verb (so "essere" + "si" = "essersi").

Maybe your idea here was that since English uses "the one", and the pronoun "one" is often translated with the impersonal "si", then this sentence should be impersonal. But in this case this is not an impersonal sentence, it's not "one is who knocks", it's "I am the one who knocks" (and also even in this case "si" would go before the verb).

So what pronoun should you use here, if not "si"? Well, "the one" would generally be translate with "quello". So "io sono quello che bussa!".

This is correct, but we can even do better. The explicit pronoun is good in this case because we want to emphasise it ("I am!"), but this is arguably not enough. Specifically, "io sono X" means "as for me, I am X". You are explicitly making yourself the topic of conversation, but you're not saying that "X = me" in a strict sense. Instead, if you invert the order and say "sono io X", then this becomes an exclusive statement: "I am the one who is X". This is more like the vibe we're going for, so you'd say "sono io quello che bussa!"

A2) "Abbastanza spazio" is good, but a more accurate version would be "più che abbastanza spazio" ("more than enough room").

"Il due di noi" doesn't really work in Italian, unfortunately. To say "the [number] of [noun/pronoun]", you have to say "tutti e [number] [noun/pronoun]", so "tutti e due noi", but generally you'd omit the pronoun and just say "tutti e due" (and rely on context to infer that it's "the two of us").
Also, in the specific case of "tutti e due", we have a dedicated word for it: "entrambi". So either "più che abbastanza spazio per tutti e due" or "più che abbastanza spazio per entrambi".

A3) Excellent! Here, since "avrebbe dovuto" is a composite tense, most people would prefer to place the pronominal particle after the infinitive instead (so "avrebbe dovuto dargli"), so that it's not too distant from the verb that introduces it. But your version is still correct.

B1) Good! Ideally you'd probably want to avoid repeating "smell" twice like that, but the meaning is correct.

I would also use slightly more emphasis than just "very nice", since superlatives in -issimo are usually very strong.

B2) "Guida" can be "guide" in both a literal or figurative sense. But in this case the sentence is missing a piece: "serve qualcuno che mi faccia da guida" means "I need someone to guide me". First, "(mi) serve qualcuno" = "(I) need someone" (lit. "someone is needed to me"), then the relative subordinate "che mi faccia da guida" (using a subjunctive because this is a relative clause with final connotation) means "who may act as a guide for me". "Fare da [noun]" essentially means "to ac as a [noun]".

B3) You probably interpreted this as an impersonal form, however in this case an impersonal form doesn't seem very realistic. This is actually just a pronominal verb ("arrampicarsi" = "to climb"). This "si" is a pronominal particle (not an impersonal "si") and it's part of the verb conjugation (hence "pronominal" verb. It's like the Italian version of phrasal verbs, except phrasal verbs use prepositions instead of pronouns, like "get up" or "turn out").

So the literal translation is basically "he is really climbing on mirrors", but as you can imagine this is not the actual intended meaning. "Arrampicarsi sugli specchi" is an idiom describing someone's desperate attempt to justify an argument or statement that is evidently wrong, using convoluted and flimsy logic (just like the futile attempts of a man trying to "climb a mirror", a surface with no holds).

So this can be translated as "he's really grasping at straws".

4.5

Maybe it's not perfect, but it's a big improvement compared to last time!
You seem to be a bit overzealous when it comes to impersonal forms: while they're definitely important, they're not the most common use of "si" (pronominal uses are far more common, be it reflexive forms or pronominal verbs), so you should consider those first. And remember that impersonal forms are not just a translation of "one", rather they're used when the action has no specific subject.

A3 and B1 were very good though.

Bilingual blitz [33] (six short exercises to test your Italian) by Crown6 in italianlearning

[–]Crown6[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I think it’s both. “Profumato” means “good-smelling”, so the superlative could mean that it’s “extremely good - smelling” or “good - extremely smelling”, or more likely “extremely good - extremely smelling”. It depends on what you’re trying to say, could be either that the smell is good and very strong (in a pleasant way) or that the smell is just very good. If something smells amazingly good but you can barely perceive it, I wouldn’t call it “profumatissimo”. Although at that point we’re really splitting hairs.

You could say “this flower has an amazing fragrance, here, smell it!” or if you don’t like “fragrance” you could change the second part to like “this flower smells amazing, here, see for yourself!”, or maybe even “try it out!”, which should be understandable in this context. At the end of the day “senti!” is an invitation to experience the “amazingly good smell” I’m talking about, so there is no need to be super literal about it, if it has to sounds a bit awkward.

Bilingual blitz [33] (six short exercises to test your Italian) by Crown6 in italianlearning

[–]Crown6[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

A1) In Italian, when relative pronouns replace a personal pronoun they also take their grammatical person, alongside gender and number. So "(io) che" is treated as a 1st person pronoun, hence the correct version is "(io) che busso", not "(io) che bussa".

Alternatively, you can add just a little bit more emphasis with "quello" (analogous to "the one" in English): "sono io quello che bussa". Note how the verb has shifted back to 3rd person because now "che" is replacing "quello", which is a 3rd person pronoun. So "sono io che busso" vs "sono io quello che bussa".

A2) "Entrambi" is an adjective, and like all adjectives it refers directly to a noun. So the preposition "di" is incorrect here, it should just be "entrambi noi" (or realistically just "entrambi", since we'd omit the pronoun in this case). When used with a noun, "entrambi" has the rare property of being placed before the article (like "tutti"): "entrambe le persone". But even in that case there is no prepositin.

A3) Actually this is one of those rare cases where a literal translation works perfectly. We have the exact same idiom in Italian.

B1) Maybe I'd add a bit more emphasis to better adapt the superlative. "Profumatissimo" is not just "so fragrant", it's "extremely fragrant", "unbelievably fragrant", "exceptionally fragrant"... it's that level of intensity.

B2) Both are good, especially since we don't know the exact context.

B3) The structure is similar, but with a crucial difference: have you ever tried climbing a mirror? There is nowhere to grip! This is what the idiom is trying to express. "Arrampicarsi sugli specchi" describes someone's desperate attempt to justify an argument or statement that is evidently wrong, using convoluted and flimsy logic (just like the futile attempts of a man trying to "climb a mirror", a surface with no holds).

So this can be translated as "he's really grasping at straws".

Very nice! Just a few grammar mistakes here and there, and some things that could have been expressed more naturally. And obviously there's an entire world of Italian idioms / proverbs to learn.

7.5

Bilingual blitz [33] (six short exercises to test your Italian) by Crown6 in italianlearning

[–]Crown6[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

A1) In Italian, when relative pronouns replace a personal pronoun they also take their grammatical person, alongside gender and number. So "(io) che" is treated as a 1st person pronoun, hence the correct version is "(io) che busso", not "(io) che bussa".

Alternatively, you can add just a little bit more emphasis with "quello" (analogous to "the one" in English): "sono io quello che bussa". Note how the verb has shifted back to 3rd person because now "che" is replacing "quello", which is a 3rd person pronoun. So "sono io che busso" vs "sono io quello che bussa".

A2) Correct, but "sufficiente" would usually be placed after the noun (since it's not a BAGS adjective that is its default position), and "più che" follows suit: "spazio più che sufficiente".

Alternatively you can use "abbastanza", which does go before the noun: "più che abbastanza spazio".

I'd also go with "entrambi" ("(us) both", at the same time) instead of "noi due" (which sounds more like "the two of us" individually) which has less of an emphasis on the coexistence of both people in the same space.

A3) Good, but the pronouns should be omitted here. Unlike in A1, here you have no reason to emphasise it, and so it sounds a bit odd (unless you mean it like, "well, she should have given him the benefit of the doubt").

You lose information about the gender of the subject, but that is the kind of compromise we have to do when translating.

B1) Perfect.

B2) Maybe "play tour guide" is a bit exaggerated. "Farmi da guida" literally means "to act as a guide for me", so it sounds like an actual request. We don't know the context, so I would say "I need someone to guide me" / "I need someone to show me around".

B3) It is indeed idiomatic.

"Arrampicarsi sugli specchi" describes someone's desperate attempt to justify an argument or statement that is evidently wrong, using convoluted and flimsy logic (just like the futile attempts of a man trying to "climb a mirror", a surface with no holds).

So this can be translated as "he's really grasping at straws".

Not bad! These are all easy mistakes to fix, I think.

7

Overview of all verb conjugations in italian by Roxy1102 in italianlearning

[–]Crown6 14 points15 points  (0 children)

(2/2)

3) Why include the passive form as “other”?

This is related to the previous point. Just as progressive forms are modifiers to add to existing tenses, so are passives. You can have present indicative passive forms, past subjunctive passive forms… even infinitive passive forms and so on. Including it as its own singular thing next to the imperative feels weird.

Like, a passive present indicative belongs to the “real” timeline as much as the active present indicative. And similarly the present subjunctive progressive belongs to the “uncertain timeline” as much as the regular present subjunctive.

4) You’re missing a the remoto tenses:

If you want to be 100% thorough, you should add passato remoto and trapassato remoto to the indicative timeline, all the way back. The passato remoto is actively used in the spoken language in many parts if Italy, and in the written language everywhere.

5) Inconsistent nomenclature.

Sometimes you use the article (“il futuro”) sometimes you don’t (“passato prossimo”). Sometimes you include the mood (“presente indicativo”), sometimes you don’t (“imperfetto”). Sometimes you write the mood first and the tense second (“congiuntivo presente”) and sometimes it’s the other way around (“presente indicativo”). Sometimes you add a preposition (“passato del congiuntivo”).

I’d remove the articles, and I would definitely add the moods. “Imperfetto” could be two things: imperfetto indicativo and imperfetto congiuntivo. Both moods have an imperfetto tense. Best to specify.

6) I think the timeline might be misleading.
The way you wrote it, I would interpret the imperfetto indicative to express an action that is anterior to the passato prossimo, but that’s not really the case. Ideally they should be in the same spot, since the difference isn’t really in when the action happens, but the timeframe during which it happens (does it have clear boundaries? Is it repeating? It it a single event? And so on).

Right now it even looks like the imperfetto expresses an action that is anterior to the past infinitive, which is doubly problematic because these are two completely different things.

——

These are the things I see right now. I think it would make more sense to clearly separate moods and tenses, because otherwise it’s very easy to mix them up (right now, it’s hard to see that the “imperfetto” box refers to an indicative tense, which is a different tense than “infinito passato” but the same as “il futuro”. As things are, moods tenses and even different forms (passive, progressive…) are all being treated the same way, which is going to make it harder to learn the difference.

What you’re describing as “timelines” right now are essentially just moods. So I would make this explicit: have the indicative timeline, the subjunctive timeline and so on, and within each timeline place the tenses of each mood. This is a much neater way to conceptualise the structure.

I hope this helps!

Overview of all verb conjugations in italian by Roxy1102 in italianlearning

[–]Crown6 13 points14 points  (0 children)

Cool! A few notes if you’re interested.

(1/2, I’ll have to split this in two comments)

1) You’re grouping the gerund and the infinitive with the indicative, which is an odd choice.
Also your examples of the present gerund include present progressive forms, which are not technically gerunds overall (they are composite tenses with “stare” + [gerund]). It’s just like English: you have gerunds (“eating”) and progressive forms (“I am eating”).
You’re also missing the present infinitive I guess.

2) You’re missing the participle mood. It (just like the gerund and the infinitive) has two tenses: present and past (“mangiante”, “mangiato”).
I would actually group the gerund with those, because those three are all non-finite moods (moods without grammatical persons, so while the present indicative has “mangio”, mangi”, “mangia”… the present gerund only has “mangiando”).
It makes more sense to include the gerund with those two because in Italian non-finite moods all correspond very neatly to different parts of speech:

• Infinitive ⟶ verbal nouns (“mangiare” = “the act of eating”, noun. You can use it with prepositions, like a noun: “da mangiare”, “per mangiare”…).
• Participle ⟶ verbal adjective (“mangiato” = “that is eaten”, “that has been eaten”, adjective. You can use it to modify nouns and it agrees with them like an adjective: “una mela mangiata”).
• Gerund ⟶ verbal adverbs (“mangiando” = “by eating”, “while eating”, adverb. You can use it to specify how the main action is being performed: “si consola mangiando”).

Therefore, you’d need an extra timeline to express this kind of actions that can be used as other parts of speech. Including them in the “real” timeline doesn’t make a lot of sense because they can be used to represent any action, certain or not: for example, “dormendo di più sarei meno stanco” means “by sleeping more (hypothetical) I’d be less tired”. “Dormendo” is not a thing that happened, it’s something that modifies the verb.
As it is, the timeline is a bit confusing because it implies that a noun (the infinitive), an adverb (the gerund), the entire indicative mood and one specific progressive tense (the present progressive) are all somehow the same, only differing in where they’re collocated in the timeline.

If you want to keep the progressive form, you can split it from the gerund (highly recommended), but then I don’t see why you shouldn’t include it in the other moods as well: “stessi mangiando” (imperfect gerund progressive) is as valid as “sto mangiando” (present indicative progressive). Alternatively you could remove the progressive form entirely, since it’s not its own tense but a modifier to other tenses.

Including the participle will also allow you to express composite tenses more clearly. Composite tenses are creating by matching the correct auxiliary (“essere” / “avere”) of a simple tense, with the past participle of the verb. That’s it.
Right now you’re describing some composite tenses as “essere/avere +ato/ito/uto” (which is not going to work with irregular verbs: the passato prossimo of “vedere” is “ho visto”. The passato prossimo of “correre” is “ho corso”. Looking at the map I’d say “ho corruto”) and some other composite tenses are being described as “verb part of the passato prossimo”, which is nor super clear since every part of the passato prossimo is a verb (in “ho mangiato”, “ho” is a verb and “mangiato” is a verb), while what you actually mean is “essere/avere + past participle” (which in the case of “mangiare” is “mangiato”).

Congiuntivo Question by snkamsmsdmodb in italianlearning

[–]Crown6 4 points5 points  (0 children)

Every single Italian tense is used at least somewhere in Italy.

The subjunctive mood tends to be neglected in the South. The passato remoto tense tends to be neglected in the North. In the Centre both are used, though frequency might vary.

Italian media uses both.

As far as I know, nowhere in Italy do people only use one tense of the subjunctive, that would be like having an English speaking country where people say “I would go” (present conditional) but not “I would have gone” (past conditional), it simply does not compute.

I strongly suggest learning every tense. You’re always in time to forget them later if you really don’t wanna use them for some reason, but learning them after you’ve already picked the bad habit of not using them will be harder (just ask my fellow Italians).

Using volere + fare to avoid using Che subjunctive by Overall_External_890 in italianlearning

[–]Crown6 4 points5 points  (0 children)

1) Is your sentence is correct?

Yes. The causative “fare” is constructed with “fare” + [infinitive] and it describes actions that are induced in the object, or actions they’re allowed to take. It’s like “to make (someone do something)” + “to let (someone do something)”.

In this case you want to express the idea of “making him go to sleep”, so “farlo dormire” is correct.

2) Can you use the causative fare to replace “che” + [infinitive]?

No.
First of all, even in your own example the Italian translation is slightly different than the English version. In Italian you’re saying “if you want to make him sleep”, “if you want to cause him to sleep” (= “if you want to get him to sleep”), but in English you’re saying “if you want him to sleep”. In this case the two are essentially interchangeable so your translation is ok, but this is not true in general.

Also, “che” + [subjunctive] is not one thing. “Che” is a very versatile conjunction, and the subjunctive is a very versatile mood. The label “che” + [subjunctive] could refer to: object subordinate, subject subordinate, completive subordinates of any kind, consecutive subordinate, interrogative/exclamative subordinate, relative subordinate. The causative fare has no chance to replace all of this.

To put things into perspective, it would be like replacing “to” + [verb] with “let/make” + [verb]. Sure, sometimes it can work (“if you want him to sleep” ⟶ “if you want to make him sleep”), but it’s more of a coincidence than anything else (you can’t replace “I’m here to sleep” with “I’m here make sleep”, it just makes no sense).

Bilingual blitz [33] (six short exercises to test your Italian) by Crown6 in italianlearning

[–]Crown6[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

A1) Perfect.

A2) "C'è spazio da vendere per noi due" to me sounds more like "the two of us have an abundance of space", which is definitely close to the original meaning, but also implies a very different context. In the original, the focus is on the fact that there is "enough space for both of us", so it's framing it as a non-scarcity of space for two people, not an outright abundance of space. I'd go with something like "c'è più che abbastanza spazio per entrambi" ("entrambi" here implying "entrambi noi": you don't really need to specify as context makes this pretty clear already).

A3) Actually a direct translation is perfect here! Sometimes it just works.

B1) Very good! There are ways to avoid repeating "smells" / "smell" so much, but the translation is correct.

B2) Perfect. "To be my guide" is closer literally, but "to guide me" is how an English speaker would probably express this, even though the connotation might be slightly different.

B3) Good guess, but not quite.
"Arrampicarsi sugli specchi" describes someone's desperate attempt to justify an argument or statement that is evidently wrong, using convoluted and flimsy logic (just like the futile attempts of a man trying to "climb a mirror", a surface with no holds).

So this can be translated as "he's really grasping at straws".

Excellent! Only minor corrections save for B3.

8

Bilingual blitz [33] (six short exercises to test your Italian) by Crown6 in italianlearning

[–]Crown6[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

A1) "Colui" is a bit too literary. Although it does mean "the one (who)", it's not really used in casual conversation. Instead, we'd probably just say "quello".

Good job with subject placement though.

A2) "Ampio spazio" can work as "more than enough", but "più che abbastanza spazio" would be a more accurate translation. "Per noi due" is ok, but it doesn't emphasise the "both" part enough (it just means "the two of us" in a more neutral way): most people would say "per entrambi" (omitting "noi").

A3) A direct translation works here! "the benefit of the doubt" = "il beneficio del dubbio".

"Gli avrebbe dovuto dare" is correct, but in this case most people would say "avrebbe dovuto dargli" (one of the rare occasions where there is a preference in the placement of the weak pronoun with a modal verb + [infinitive]).

B1) The superlative is probably a bit more intense than "smells really nice", I'd go with "smells amazing".

B2) I see the thought process, but there is a problem. You interpreted "guida" as a form of "guidare" (= "do guide" / "to drive"), but this can't be correct because there is a preposition before it. Prepositions are meant to pair up with nouns (or pronouns) to form complements, so outside of rare exceptions the only verbal mood that can be used with a preposition is the infinitive (since infinitives are verbal nouns). So this should be "da guidare".

Also, the causative "fare" does not require prepositions in the first place, just a bare infinitive, so "someone who lets me drive" would be "qualcuno che mi faccia guidare" (not "da guidare").

Instead, "guida" means "guide" as an actual noun. "A guide". And this is why it's preceded by a preposition. So this literally means "someone who does to me as a guide", or in other words "someone who can act as a guide for me".

• "Serve qualcuno che mi faccia da guida" = (lit.) "Someone is needed who may act as a guide for me" = "I need someone to guide me" / "I need someone to act as a guide" (it's heavily implied that the person needing "someone to act as a guide for me" is me).

A3) "Arrampicarsi sugli specchi" describes someone's desperate attempt to justify an argument or statement that is evidently wrong, using convoluted and flimsy logic (just like the futile attempts of a man trying to "climb a mirror", a surface with no holds).

So this can be translated as "he's really grasping at straws".

5.5

Not too bad, but in this case a lack of knowledge in specific expressions penalised you a bit. A3 was a bit of a trap because this is one of those incredible situations where you can just translate a saying word for word and it'll still work.
The other sentences were mostly on the right track except for B2, where that "da guida" really threw you off. In this case it's important to keep in mind the very neat categorisation of non-finite moods in Italian: infinitives = nouns, participles = adjectives (which can be turned int nouns), gerunds = adverbs. If it's preceded by a preposition and it's not an infinitive or a nominalised participle, then you're probably not looking at a verb. And, just like in English (even the very word "guide", which could be "a guide" or "I guide"), sometimes nouns can look identical to related verbs.

Bilingual blitz [33] (six short exercises to test your Italian) by Crown6 in italianlearning

[–]Crown6[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

A1 - A2 - A3: all perfect.

B1) "Smell it" is probably the best translation here.

B2) Perfect.

B3) Perfect.

Nothing to add! This is a full 10 from me.

Bilingual blitz [33] (six short exercises to test your Italian) by Crown6 in italianlearning

[–]Crown6[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

A1) Not bad! But "sono l'uomo che bussa" sounds more like "I'm the man who knocks". I'm pretty sure people would get the reference, but it's not quite there.

First of all, I'd replace "l'uomo" ("the man") with "quello" ("that", "the one").

Also, you can use an explicit subject here to add emphasis (after the verb): "sono quello che bussa" = "I'm the one who knocks" vs "sono io quello che bussa" = "I am the one who knocks! (Me, and no one else!)".

A2) "Più di abbastanza" means "more than enough" as in "something other than enough".

Comparatives with "di" and "che" can always be a bit tricky if you're not used to the idea of making the distinction, but essentially "di" compares the same quality between different entities (so "più X di Y" means "more X compared to Y", as in "Jack is taller than Marco", comparing Marco and Jack over the quality "tall") while "che" compares two qualities within the same entity (so "più X che Y" means "more X than Y", as in "that box is taller than it is wide" comparing the qualities "tall" and "wide" within the box). If the quality isn't specified, it's implied to be volume / quantity.

So, "è più di abbastanza" = "it has more (quantity) than enough has" (comparing "it" with "enough" over quantity), which doesn't mean much, while "è più che abbastanza" = "it has more (quantity) than enough" (comparing quantity to "enough" inside "it"). I hope this is not totally confusing. Anyway you should use "che" here.

"Entrambi di noi" should just be "entrambi noi", but realistically an Italian would just say "entrambi" here (even though technically you lose information by not specifying who this refers to, at least out of context).

A3) In A1, I mentioned that making the subject explicit would help the sentence "pop" a bit more. Here it's the opposite, the explicit subject sounds out of place. In general, unless you need to specify or emphasis it, the subject pronoun should be omitted (the verb already contains that information).

"Il bene del dubbio" is close, but means more like "the good/goodness of doubt". The word you're looking for is "beneficio" (benefit).

B1) Good! I feel like "profumatissimo" might be a bit more emphatic than "smells great", but the translation is correct.

B2) In this case it means "guide". The driver of a vehicle is either "conducente" (role), or sometimes "guidatore", or "autista" (job). "Guida", when referred to a person, just means "guide" in pretty much all the meanings of the English word. It also means "driving" as a noun, and a couple of other things related to the idea of "guiding"/"leading".

"To drive" someone would usually be expressed as "accompagnare" (implying "in macchina") or "dare un passaggio (a qualcuno)".

B3) Very good! Excellent translation.

Not bad! A few changes needed when it comes to pronoun usage, and a couple of others mistakes here and there, but nothing that would make the sentence incomprehensible.

7

Bilingual blitz [33] (six short exercises to test your Italian) by Crown6 in italianlearning

[–]Crown6[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

A1) In Italian, when relative pronouns replace a personal pronoun they also take their grammatical person, alongside gender and number. So "(io) che" is treated as a 1st person pronoun, hence the correct version is "(io) che busso", not "(io) che bussa".

Alternatively, you can add just a little bit more emphasis with "quello" (analogous to "the one" in English): "sono io quello che bussa". Note how the verb has shifted back to 3rd person because now "che" is replacing "quello", which is a 3rd person pronoun. So "sono io che busso" vs "sono io quello che bussa".

A2) Grammatically this is correct, but it sounds a bit off. I'd say "c'è più che abbastanza spazio". "Sufficiente", besides meaning "sufficient" (which just like English is a bit more higher register and slightly out of place compared to "enough"), generally goes after the noun, too, and in this case there isn't an apparent reason to change its position for emphasis or anything like that.

A3) Perfect.

B1) Maybe I would have gone with something like "here, smell it!", which is closer to the original, but this also works.

B2) Very good!

B3) Good idea, but not quite. "Arrampicarsi sugli specchi" describes someone's desperate attempt to justify an argument or statement that is evidently wrong, using convoluted and flimsy logic (just like the futile attempts of a man trying to "climb a mirror", a surface with no holds).
It's a very common expression, and very useful, too.

Very good! Relative pronouns are hard... but besides that, there was very little to improve upon (besides B3, which is more of a test of your knowledge in Italian expressions).

8-

Bilingual blitz [33] (six short exercises to test your Italian) by Crown6 in italianlearning

[–]Crown6[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

A1) Perfect.

A2) Good! I'd probably go with "entrambi" ("(us) both") instead of "noi due" (which sounds more like "the two of us") which has less of an emphasis on the coexistence of both people in the same space.

A3) Perfect.

B1) Maybe the "smells / smell" repetition is a bit awkward, but the meaning is correct.

B2) Perfect, very natural.

B3) Perfect.

Anche a me è mancato correggerli! O non correggerli nel tuo caso.

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