Ha progettato la macchina.

English Translation

He designed the car.

I generally think there are too many redundant personal pronouns in the Italian sentences, but here it would make sense: “Lui ha progettato la macchina” (He designed the car).

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She definitely didn’t :wink:

Buona giornata!

Edit: I pronomi sono una questione vitale in questi giorni! Usa quello sbagliato, grosso guaio;-)))

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If you want to translate the English version faithfully, you have to include the pronoun, but if you have to translate from Italian to English (as is the case here), you have to guess the subject. Maybe he did, maybe she did.

If I wanted to highlight that the car was designed by him, I would use “Ha progettato lui la macchina”.

Moving the pronoun after the verb makes it more important.

Otherwise if it is clear from the context that he did, I would probably drop the pronoun.

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Good point!

@Floria7: That’s a strong argument for leaving the pronouns out :wink:

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I really like the pronoun placement for emphasis. “Sì, Montalbano sono!” :slight_smile:

I joke about Pronouns as the use of the incorrect one got me banned for life from “the other place”. Che stupidaggini no?

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This one is a bit of a different thing: ending a sentence with a verb is typical of the Sicilian language (and the Italian spoken in Sicily), so this use in Montalbano is a way to signal that the show is happening in Sicily.

It is not technically a wrong construct, as Italian has much more liberty on word placement compared to English, but it would sound strange, or mocking, if used by someone from northern Italy.

Of course, in a TV show, it is an easy way to show someone is from Sicily, without really using the Sicilian language.

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Ciao @mike-lima Mille grazie per questo. Actually I thought it was just a Montalbanoism that made me smile. I had no idea it was an indication of Sicillian! How interesting - there are probably more meanings that we miss through not understanding certain words. My Camilleri dictionary helps a lot.

Thanks again.

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