Italian sentence building.For beginners.

You decided to learn Italian, you bought your books, and now it’s time to start practising. In this article, we’ll break down the rules to build Italian sentences. We need to differentiate the kinds of phrases.

• AFFIRMATIVE SENTENCES
• SIMPLE INTERROGATIVE SENTENCES
• INTERROGATIVE SENTENCES WITH QUESTION WORDS
• NEGATIVE SENTENCES

AFFIRMATIVE SENTENCES

To form an affirmative Italian sentence, you need to follow the SVO rule:

SUBJECT + VERB + OBJECT

EX. ” He eats an apple ” = ” Lui mangia una mela ”

EX, ” We read a book ” = ” Noi leggiamo un libro ”

THE SUBJECT IS OMITTED SOMETIMES

Often, the subject is omitted because the verb conjugation tells you exactly who is performing the action.

EX. ” Leggiamo un libro ”

EX. ” They eat a pizza ” = ” Mangiano una pizza ”

ADJECTIVES ACCORDANCE & COLLOCATION

Most of the times the adjective is placed after the noun and matches the gender and the number of the noun.

EX. ” Carla buys nice bags ” = ” Carla compra borse belle ”

EX. ” They eat red apples ” = ” Mangiano mele rosse ”

EX. ” They eat a red apple ” = ” Mangiano una mela rossa ”

SIMPLE INTERROGATIVE SENTENCES

In Italian, the ” DO structure ” doesn’t exist; we form questions by using a question mark at the end of the sentence, and we change tone of voice while pronouncing the phrase.

EX. ”Do you eat red apples? ” = ” Mangi mele rosse? ”

EX. Do you want a coffee? ” = ” Vuoi un caffè?”

INTERROGATIVE SENTENCES WITH QUESTION WORDS

To form a question by using the question words you must follow this pattern:

QUESTION WORD + VERB:

EX. ” What do you eat? ” = ” Cosa mangi?”

EX. ” Where do they go? ” = ” Dove vanno? ”

NEGATIVE SENTENCES

To make negative sentences, we use NON, which must be placed BEFORE the verb, and sometimes is located between a proper noun and the verb.

EX. ” Carla doesn’t buy bags ” = ” Carla NON compra borse ”

EX. ” They don’t eat apples ” = ” NON mangiano mele ”

Last but not least, remember that Italians form their sentences using accordance. The noun matches the article, the adjective agrees with the noun.

I hope this article helped you go through Italian sentences! Have a good one!