Voted Best Answer
Feb 21, 2014 - 04:51 AM
Ok, I see. My above explanation referred to the use of Di and the articles, not to the plural of nouns. It's the same as in English:
- Abbiamo parlato di UNA macchina = (We) talked about A car. You were talking about one car, so you need an article in Italian (but the singular article, because it's one car only). You can't say "abbiamo parlato di macchina" without the article, just like you can't say "we talked about car" in English,
- Abbiamo parlato di macchine = (We) talked about cars. Here you're talking about cars in general, you talked about several cars, but not specific cars. Again, it's like in English. You don't need an article, but the noun "macchine", "cars" has to be in the plural.
- Abbiamo parlato DELLA macchina che abbiamo visto ieri = (We) talked about the car that (we) saw yesterday. Here you talked about one car, but a specific one, the one you saw yesterday.
- Abbiamo parlato DELLE macchine che abbiamo visto ieri = (We) talked about the cars that (we) saw yesterday. Here you talked about several cars, but specific cars, the ones you saw yesterday.
I hope not to be confusing you more, let me know if this explanation works for you.
- Abbiamo parlato di UNA macchina = (We) talked about A car. You were talking about one car, so you need an article in Italian (but the singular article, because it's one car only). You can't say "abbiamo parlato di macchina" without the article, just like you can't say "we talked about car" in English,
- Abbiamo parlato di macchine = (We) talked about cars. Here you're talking about cars in general, you talked about several cars, but not specific cars. Again, it's like in English. You don't need an article, but the noun "macchine", "cars" has to be in the plural.
- Abbiamo parlato DELLA macchina che abbiamo visto ieri = (We) talked about the car that (we) saw yesterday. Here you talked about one car, but a specific one, the one you saw yesterday.
- Abbiamo parlato DELLE macchine che abbiamo visto ieri = (We) talked about the cars that (we) saw yesterday. Here you talked about several cars, but specific cars, the ones you saw yesterday.
I hope not to be confusing you more, let me know if this explanation works for you.