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"il mio cuore batte"- Italian question

  Tags: Italian | Grammar
 Language Learning Forum : Questions About Your Target Languages Post Reply
Dark_Sunshine
Diglot
Senior Member
United Kingdom
Joined 5766 days ago

340 posts - 357 votes 
Speaks: English*, French

 
 Message 1 of 4
06 November 2014 at 2:02am | IP Logged 
Hi everyone,

I haven't started studying Italian yet, but for a job application to teach English in
Italy, I have to write an analysis of the grammatical errors in a text written by a
'typical' Italian learner of English. For most of them, I can account for the mistakes
using my knowledge of French, but I'm stuck on this one:

"my heart is beating for me so strong"

I've found it difficult to google this one because I really know zero Italian other
than what I can decipher via French... But in French I've only heard "mon coeur bat"
and not "mon coeur me bat" (except in a song I heard once!). What am I missing that
accounts for the interference in "my heart is beating for me"?
1 person has voted this message useful



nicozerpa
Triglot
Senior Member
Argentina
Joined 4327 days ago

182 posts - 315 votes 
Speaks: Spanish*, Portuguese, English
Studies: Italian, German

 
 Message 2 of 4
06 November 2014 at 2:26am | IP Logged 
It's common to say "Il cuore mi batte" in Italian. The mistake here is adding the "mi" part to the English sentence.
1 person has voted this message useful



Ogrim
Heptaglot
Senior Member
France
Joined 4640 days ago

991 posts - 1896 votes 
Speaks: Norwegian*, English, Spanish, French, Romansh, German, Italian
Studies: Russian, Catalan, Latin, Greek, Romanian

 
 Message 3 of 4
06 November 2014 at 9:00am | IP Logged 
Yes, in Italian it is more normal to use the structure "Article (il, la) + noun + indirect object (mi, ti etc.) + verb where English would use Possesive (My, Yours) + noun + verb, in particular when you talk about body parts. Other examples are:

Mi fa male la testa = My head aches (or I have a headache).

Mi esce il sangue dal naso = My nose bleeds.


6 persons have voted this message useful



Dark_Sunshine
Diglot
Senior Member
United Kingdom
Joined 5766 days ago

340 posts - 357 votes 
Speaks: English*, French

 
 Message 4 of 4
06 November 2014 at 8:00pm | IP Logged 
Thanks... I already knew this with phrases like "my head hurts" because I tend to
interpret it as "my head is causing pain (to me)", but I guess for some reason I couldn't
get my head around the verb "to beat" needing an indirect object.   


1 person has voted this message useful



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