a letter

1

sorry for the misspell of "dice" come si dice...lol

1

"Una lettera" ;)

0

"Puoi scrivere una lettera?" = "Can you write a letter?"

"Puoi scrivermi una lettera?" = "Can you write me a letter?"

About the latter, I'm not sure whether the English translation retains the same double meaning of the Italian sentence: "write to somebody" or "write on behalf of somebody". My dictionary doesn't help. :/

0

Ciao Amici miei! To answer your Q Salvatore, the double meaning of the IOP in this example is not retained in English. To express the second one, you could say what you said (on behalf of) or use the more common (and less fancy) preposition 'for'. Thus, the meanings of writing TO someone and writing FOR someone are for the most part different, but there is some overlap. Doing something TO someone will almost never mean doing that thing FOR someone, but the reverse is permissible: you can say "I'm writing a letter for Maria," when the letter is intended FOR Maria, and it will thereafter be given or sent TO Maria. If I bake a cake for Mario, this can mean 1. it's going to be Mario's cake, or 2. Mario was too lazy to bake it himself, so he asked me to do it for him :)

0

Thanks a lot, Nathan!

"...write me..." = "...write...to me..."

BUT

"...write me..." ≠ "...write...for"

So, "to write" is a ditransitive verb, like "To give".
Am I correct?

Anyway, your explanation about "TO" / "FOR" is valid for Italian too. ;)

0

Ciao Salvatore, you are right about all of the above. Good job.

0

totally get it thanks guys... :))

0

;)

-1

ok so with that in mind and in lieu of what we were talking about concerning the verbs are the two sentences the same or different.

Can you write me a letter?
Can you write a letter?

Puoi scrivermi una lettera? o Puoi scrivere una lettera?

Ok I need some correction if I am wrong...lol grazie