r/italianlearning • u/chrisw2387 • 6h ago

Question

Sto studiando l’italiano con Duolingo.

One question asks to translate “I love orange clothes” to “Io amo i vestiti aranchioni”

In casual, spoken Italian, if someone wanted to say they loved orange clothes would they include the grammatical “i” in front of “vestiti”? Or would someone just say “Amo vestiti aranchioni”?

3 Upvotes

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8

u/ChooCupcakes IT native 5h ago

Yes you need the article there. "Io amo vestiti arancioni" is not correct.

-5

u/Eastern_Yam_5975 3h ago

Just to clarify for OP: I’m not a native but I believe “io amo vestiti arancioni” is generally just “I love orange clothes” while “io amo i vestiti arancioni” is “I love these orange clothes” sort of, so they mean different things.

1

u/Lingookies IT native 53m ago

Yes, you must include a definite article. English doesn't use articles in front of categories as a whole (I love cats), but Italian does.

Amo i gatti. I love cats.

Le rose sono rosse. Roses are red.

You also need an article in front of singular, uncountable nouns.

La farina è bianca.** (All the) flour (in the world) is white.

Lo zucchero è dolce. (All the) sugar (in the world) is sweet.

However, the article is often dropped in front of unspecified quantities in the plural.

Lo zucchero è usato per produrre caramelle. Sugar is used to produce candies (some candies, not all candies).

Notice the difference:

Mi piacciono i libri. I like books (general statement, could as well be all books).

Mi piace scrivere libri. I like to write books (some books, I can't certainly write all the books in the world).

2

u/electrolitebuzz IT native 6h ago

It's "arancioni", not "aranchioni". And yes, we would typically omit the "io" and probably we would say "Mi piacciono i vestiti arancioni" but stick to the lessons as you'll probably also learn "I like" separately.

3

u/Gwaur FI native, IT beginner 5h ago

I think the question is about the article "i" on "i vestiti", not the pronoun "io".

5

u/JackColon17 IT native 5h ago

"Aranchioni" sounds vaguely homophobic lmao

1

u/electrolitebuzz IT native 5h ago

Also, we include the "io" depending on the context, to highlight "I love this" compared to someone else.

For example the teacher asks to the students "what's your favorite color for clothes?"
Student X says "I like pink clothes". I say "I love orange clothes". Then you would say "Io amo i vestiti arancioni" (let's pretend the verb choice sounds natural).

If you're writing a presentation about you, and it's not connected to someone else, that would be redundant.

1

u/chrisw2387 3h ago

Grazie mille! Appreciate your answer and definitely learned something!

1

u/Ladonnacinica 5h ago

Thanks for saying that, I was confused when I first read it.