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L'utente è arrabbiato. Non ci puoi contare.

L'utente è arrabbiato. Non ci puoi contare.
The user is angry. You cannot count on him.
From Lesson 236:The comitative and instrumental pronoun (ci)·Italian

Questions & Answers about L'utente è arrabbiato. Non ci puoi contare.

The translation says 'on him', but I don't see 'su di lui'. How does that work?
In Italian, the little word ci can replace su (on) + a pronoun or noun. The verb phrase here is contare su (to count on). Instead of saying the repetitive Non puoi contare su di lui, we use the clitic ci to smoothly say Non ci puoi contare.
Why is ci placed before puoi instead of being attached to contare?
It can actually go in either place! When you have a modal verb like potere (here conjugated as puoi) followed by an infinitive verb (contare), pronoun clitics can either go before the conjugated verb (Non ci puoi contare) or attach to the end of the dropped-e infinitive (Non puoi contarci). Both are perfectly natural.
How do we know 'the user' is a man in this sentence?
We know because the adjective arrabbiato (angry) ends in -o, which is the masculine singular ending. The noun utente (user) is identical for both men and women when used with the definite article l'. If it were a female user, the first sentence would be L'utente è arrabbiata.
Does contare always mean 'to rely on'?
No, on its own, contare usually just means 'to count' (like numbers or inventory). But the specific expression contare su qualcuno means 'to count on someone' or 'to rely on someone', which mirrors the English phrase perfectly.

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