Voted Best Answer
Nov 30, 2010 - 10:50 AM
I'll copy this following text which I took from http://forum.wordreference.com/showth... which had what I thought was a pretty good analysis.
The 'da + infinitive' construction is one that I particularly enjoyed learning...it's different from the english, but it's pretty consistent in meaning and simple to understand: it's nearly always translated directly as the english 'to + infinitive'. The meaning, though, is not precisely as in a standard english 'to + infinitive'...it means something closer to a 'to be + past participle'...so, you might say that something 'needs to be done' by saying 'da fare'...asking if there's anything to eat ('to be eaten') could be 'da mangiare'...if there's an envelope sitting on the table to be mailed, you might call it 'da mandare,' and so on.
So when something is there 'to be sent', 'to be drank' etc. You use the da form, whereas 'altra cosa' is not specific at all. In English we would use just the infinitive contruction,, so it's hard to show the difference by translating directly. If you ask someone if they want something 'da bere' what they are referring to will only be something drinkable, a wine, a coffee, a soda etc. By saying 'da bere' they are saying "would you like something to drink?", instead of "would you like to drink something?"
Again, this will be explored further later in the course.
The 'da + infinitive' construction is one that I particularly enjoyed learning...it's different from the english, but it's pretty consistent in meaning and simple to understand: it's nearly always translated directly as the english 'to + infinitive'. The meaning, though, is not precisely as in a standard english 'to + infinitive'...it means something closer to a 'to be + past participle'...so, you might say that something 'needs to be done' by saying 'da fare'...asking if there's anything to eat ('to be eaten') could be 'da mangiare'...if there's an envelope sitting on the table to be mailed, you might call it 'da mandare,' and so on.
So when something is there 'to be sent', 'to be drank' etc. You use the da form, whereas 'altra cosa' is not specific at all. In English we would use just the infinitive contruction,, so it's hard to show the difference by translating directly. If you ask someone if they want something 'da bere' what they are referring to will only be something drinkable, a wine, a coffee, a soda etc. By saying 'da bere' they are saying "would you like something to drink?", instead of "would you like to drink something?"
Again, this will be explored further later in the course.