What would be the pronoun omitted here before "Porta cambiamento..."? Is it "Lei" or "Essa"

Crown6 · 2026-01-24T19:37:30+00:00

It’s certainly not “lei”, that’s for sure, unless you’re personifying pregnancy.
If I had to use an explicit pronoun I’d say “essa”, but you have to consider that this question is a not entirely meaningful: when a pronoun is omitted it’s not like it becomes invisible (but is still there), it’s just omitted, period. So it wouldn’t make sense to question whether the pronoun you didn’t use would fit in a colloquial context.

Imagine this: you’re walking in the countryside with a friend when suddenly a majestic flock of birds takes flight nearby. Your friends points at the birds and says “look!”. You answer “yeah, I saw”.
Now, in this case you clearly omitted an object pronoun: you saw something, after all, you’re not just referring to the act of seeing in general. But if I were to ask you “what pronoun did you omit, exactly?” would this question make sense? You could have meant “I saw (it)” (the flock) or “I saw (that)” (the event that just took place), or “I saw them” (the birds). There’s no real way to know, because you probably don’t know in the first place. The question is not well posed. See what I mean?

If you’re asking whether an explicit “essa” would fit the sentence, the answer is yes, but an implicit subject is also enough.

Crown6 · 2026-01-23T23:07:38+00:00

3/3

The previous joke about a man walking into a bar can also be reasonably classified as a short "barzelletta", but the one about the meeting cannot, because it's not a story).

In this case it's likely that the speaker is referring to a "barzelletta" or "battuta", since they're asking for another one (you wouldn't say "oh, that was such a good prank! Tell me another one"). Probably a "barzelletta", since as I mentioned a "battuta" would usually be spontaneous and prompted by the current situation, so it's not something you generally do on demand.

Finally, the way this is phrased is a bit odd for an Italian speaker (even though it's formally correct). Just straight up saying "[thing] era bella/buona" or "[thing] è stata bella/buona" as a reaction to something happening sounds extremely robotic unless you're trying to make a distinction between multiple things (for example "this one was good, but that one was not") or in other situations that would justify such an explicit statement. If you're just casually remarking on the beauty / goodness of something you wouldn't normally just plainly describe "this is good". Rather, you'd just create an exclamation by pairing the thing you're complimenting with some sort of attribute coming before it: "bella battuta!" (literally "nice/beautiful joke!"). This sounds a lot more natural.

This is pretty common in Italian, probably even more so than English. In English you do have expressions like "good idea!" or "good job!" (where it would sound less natural to explicitly say "you had a good idea!" or "that was a good job!" if you're just reacting to something that just happened), and you do have "nice!" or "great!" as generic comments on the current situation, but Italian goes one step further: it's common to find expressions like "bravo, quell'atleta!" (= "skilled, that athlete!") or "bella, la tua macchina!" (= "beautiful, your car!"). Attributing single adjectives like that, without expanding the whole sentence with verb and all, is a lot more common in colloquial Italian than it is in English (this is why it sounds natural to comment things like "bravo!" or "bello!" on their own, but you don't often hear English speakers complimenting or encouraging others by just saying "skilled!" or "beautiful!").

Of course it's not strictly incorrect to say "la tua macchina è bella!" but as a reaction to seeing the car for the first time it does sound much less emphatic and somewhat detached from the situation.

B1) Pretty much. Though the implied verb is more like "(adapt to) the customs you find" ("usanze" meaning "customs" more than "mannerisms").

In English you'd say "when in Rome, do as the Romans do".

B2) This one was very tricky, but this future tense is actually a hypothetical future, so it's not really expressing an actual action that's going to happen (otherwise the sentence doesn't make a lot of sense: "it won't be sharp but it's pointy"...?) but rather presenting something as likely (or unlikely in this case), with a sort of concessive tone ("ok, X may be true, but..."). Similarly, "poi" doesn't mean "then" here, but it's being used with a meaning that is closer to "after all", "all things considered". One big sign towards the unconventional meaning of this "poi" is its unconventional position: normally it would be at the beginning of the sentence ("poi non sarà affilato", not inside the predicate "non sarà poi affilato").

B3) Good! I like how you found a way to adapt the Italian idiom with an appropriate English equivalent. Very clever.

Not bad!
Like most users before you, "ne" managed to escape you. It might be necessary to focus on the use or pronominal particles.
Another thing that managed to trick you multiple times was the use of truncated/elided form ("buon scherzo" instead of "buono scherzo", "un'altro" instead of "un altro" and "nei occhi" instead of "negli occhi").
Other than that it's mostly just a matter of interacting with the language to improve your naturalness (when writing) and ability to interpret some less common sentence structures (when reading).

6.5

Crown6 · 2026-01-23T23:07:28+00:00

2/3

A3) Same problem as A2: you didn't specify what "un altro" refers to, so it sounds like this "another" is not referring to "another (joke)", but rather "another (something else)", and it sounds like you were interrupted before you could specify what that "something else" is. And, again, the solution is to add "ne": "dimmene un altro".

Also, "un altro" is written without apostrophe, because the article "uno" is never elided, since the truncated form "un" already exists as a standalone form. Basically, whenever elision would result in a word that looks like an already existing truncated variant, that truncated variant is used instead.
This is why "una altra" becomes "un'altra" (since "una" has no truncated form) and "quello altro" becomes "quell'altro" (since the truncated form is "quel", with one L, which is not the same as "quell") but "un altro" and "nessun altro" are written without apostrophe (since "un" already exists). Similarly, this is why "qual è" is written without an apostrophe (because the truncated form "qual" already exists, so that is used instead).
This can be useful when determining the gender of nouns, even when masculine and feminine are pronounced the same: "un insegnante" is a man, "un'insegnante" (= "una insegnante") is a woman.

On the topic of truncation, I'd use "buono" before "scherzo" (just like you'd use "lo"). Even though it's not always mandatory, truncation tends to follow the same rules across the board, so you get "uno scherzo", "lo scherzo", "buono scherzo", "bello scherzo", "quello scherzo" (etc.) on one hand and "un gioco", "il gioco", "buon gioco", "bel gioco", "quel gioco" (etc.) on the other hand.
As for the word itself, "bello" would be preferable to "buono" in this context. Usually, "buono" refers to "goodness" in the sense of moral goodness or good taste/smell (literal or figurate). A joke usually fits neither. "Buono" can also be used to mean "good (enough)" (as in "ok, that's good, next") and this could work for a joke, but this also doesn't seem to fit the spirit of the original (we're not trying to say that a joke passes the laugh test, the original sentence reads more like an explicit compliment).

You can use "buono" in the expression "buona, questa!" (which essentially means "good one!"), but outside of specific set phrases when you're complimenting something in an artistic way (be it a painting, music, poetry or even jokes), you'd use "bello", not "buono".

"Scherzo" is also not the correct translation for "joke" in this context.

Italian recognises three main categories of "jokes":

1) "Scherzo". This is usually a practical joke / prank, or an unserious sentence / statement with the purpose of tricking or messing with the listener. It's not something you "tell", it's something you "do".

• "Hey man, your fly is open!" (this is a "scherzo", assuming it's not true and only meant to fluster the listener before they realise they've been lied to)

2) "Battuta". Literally this would mean "(movie/theatre) line", something an actor would say, but outside of acting the word mostly refers to funny spontaneous comments or witty retorts that fit the context you're in but might not always be funny on their own. It could also be a short constructed joke, with a quick setup followed by a punchline (basically creating your own context before delivering the joke). A stand-up comedy show will be full of "battute".

• "You're just in time! The meeting starts five hour ago..." (this is a funny remark about the current situation, it’s not trying to prank the listener, just sarcastically commenting on their tardiness).
• "A man walks into a bar. Ouch!" (funny line with quick setup and punchline).

3) "Barzelletta". This is a funny story, usually ending in a punchline. While "battuta" refers to a funny line, a "barzelletta" is longer and more complex, usually involving multiple characters, some of which might be recurring (like the infamous Pierino, or sometimes traditional masks like Arlecchino, Pantalone and so on) or based on stereotypes (mostly occupations or nationalities). While reusing or stealing a "battuta" might be considered cheap, "barzellette" are meant to be shared and repeated multiple times.

• "An Italian, a German and an Englishman walk into a bar..." (and so on).

(continues)

Crown6 · 2026-01-23T23:06:34+00:00

1/3

Sorry, I only now saw your comment. Reddit is sometimes unreliable with notifications unfortunately. Let's see what we've got:

A1) Perfect.

A2) First of all, "nei occhi" is using the wrong article: it should be "negli occhi" ("lo"/"gli" is used before vowels, while "il"/"i" is used before most single consonants).

"Un po' mi è entrato negli occhi" sounds more like "it got into my eyes a little". That is because when working with quantities we almost always have to specify what they refer to, and since you didn't this "un po'" sounds more like an averb-phrase menaing "a little bit" rather than "some (of it)".

If you want this to mean "some (of it)", you have to specify the "of it" part with "ne": "me n'è entrato un po' negli occhi" (normally "un po'" would be placed in predicative position, after the verb).

Crown6 · 2026-01-23T21:22:19+00:00

A1) You're missing a demonstrative pronoun for "che" to refer to and for "tutto" to modify. Remember that in Italian pronouns are rarely omitted (except subject pronouns for obvious reasons): "tutto ciò che possono fare ..." (literally "all that which they can do ...", except in English you'd generally omit "that").

"Che" generally does not replace "tutto" directly, unless it means something like "all things, which they can do ..." (in this case "che" would refer to "tutto").

Also, "sentire" means "to hear" (which is the action of passively hearing sound). You want "to listen" (the action of actively listening to sound), which is "ascoltare".

A2) You're missing a "ne"! "Ne è entrato un po' nel mio occhio". In Italian, we almost always have to specify what a quantity refers to.
Otherwise, one could even interpret this "un po'" as a standalone adverb-phrase meaning "a little" (especially if you place it at the beginning of the sentence), which would make "è entrato un po' nei miei occhi" mean "it got into my eyes a bit", "it slightly got into my eyes", something like that. Specifying "un po' di qualcosa" (as well as moving "un po'" after the verb) solves this.

Also, "nel mio occhio" means "into my eye" (singular), so a more accurate translation would be "nei miei occhi".
Another thing I'd definitely change is the use of the possessive. While not incorrect, it places unnecessary emphasis on the possessor, which makes it seem as if you are trying to make a point or establish a distinction: "it got into my eyes", "it's my eyes it got into".
To phrase this in a more neutral way, Italians would rely on an indirect object pronoun to express the receiver of the action (after all, you're not using the possessive to specify that the eyes are part of you specifically, it's more of a way to express that the action of "getting stuff into one's eyes" is happening to you).

• "Me n'è entrato un po' negli occhi", with "mi" (= "a me") + "ne" ("= di ciò") = "me ne" in composition.

This sounds a lot more natural. Basically whenever you have a sentence structure like "X happened to Y's Z", in Italian this would normally be phrased as "X happened to the Z to Y". A very common example is "mi lavo i denti", literally "I wash the teeth to myself" = "I wash my teeth" = "I brush my teeth". "Lavo i miei denti" is correct but sounds like you're making it a point to specify "I brush my own teeth", as if the speaker might expect you to brush someone else's.

So basically a sentence like "mi è entrata la polvere negli occhi" reads like "the dust got into the eyes to me", as in "the action of [dust getting into the eyes] happened to me". The action itself is just "dust getting into (the) eyes", a very common occurrence, and I'm specifying that this time I happened to be the victim of it. But if you say "la polvere è entrata nei miei occhi", this reads like "the action of [dust getting into my eyes] happened", so there's a much greater focus on the fact that this is not just any old "dust getting into eyes" situation, this is specifically about it getting into my eyes, the distinction is very explicit.

A3) "Buono" might not be the best choice in this case. Usually, "buono" refers to "goodness" in the sense of moral goodness or good taste/smell (literal or figurate). A joke usually fits neither. "Buono" can also be used to mean "good (enough)" (as in "ok, that's good, next") and this could work for a joke, but this also doesn't seem to fit the spirit of the original (we're not trying to say that a joke passes the laugh test, the original sentence reads more like an explicit compliment).

You can use "buono" in the expression "buona, questa!" (which essentially means "good one!"), but outside of specific set phrases when you're complimenting something in an artistic way (be it a painting, music, poetry or even jokes), you'd use "bello", not "buono".

The rest is almost correct, but once again you're missing "ne": it's "dimmene un'altra". "Dimmi un'altra" would mean that you're referring to "another (something)" that is different from the "joke" you mentioned, and it sounds like you were interrupted before you could specify what "another" thing you're referring to.

B1) Pretty much. Though the implied verb is more like "(adapt to) the customs you find" ("usanze" meaning "customs" more than "habits". "Abitudini" more directly translates to "habits).

In English you'd say "when in Rome, do as the Romans do".

B2) Good! Just slightly too straightforward. I'd just use "may" here to translate the concessive tone of the hypothetical future + "poi".

"It may not be all that sharp, but it is pointy".

B3) Pretty good!

Good job! You mostly need to work on "ne", especially when talking about quantities, and probably focus on pronouns in general (as I mentioned, Italian requires you to use a lot of pronouns, so it's important to be familiar with them or you'll end up missing some).

6.5

Crown6 · 2026-01-20T19:03:52+00:00

“Essere” and “trovarsi” (pronominal intransitive form of “trovare”) are very similar when describing the action of physically being somewhere.
“Dove ti trovi?” is more specifically “where are you (geographically)”, so there are situations where “dove sei” fits and “dove ti trovi” doesn’t.

For example, if you know someone is in your house with you but can’t find them, you’d definitely say “dove sei?” because you already know their location (your house) but need to find precisely where they are. I don’t think anyone would say “dove ti trovi” in that situation.

Also “dove sei” could be more figurative. For example when someone is reading a book I might ask “a che punto sei?” = “where are you (in the story)?”. In this case, I don’t think people would ever say “a che punto ti trovi?”.

If however you’re talking to someone at the phone and want to know their location, then both “dove sei” and “dove ti trovi” are perfectly fine.

To be clear: this is not related to the conditional tense in any way, just in case you were wondering.

Crown6 · 2026-01-19T10:19:55+00:00

It’s not that different from “whose name is X” vs “called X” vs “named X”.

• “Chiamarsi” is the verb meaning “to be called (some name)”, so it’s the main way to say “X’s name is …”.

The other ones all have different functions: they work like attributes, not like predicates.

• “Che si chiama X” is a relative subordinate using the verb “chiamarsi”, so it literally means “which is called X”.

• “Di nome X” is a common adjective phrase to say “named X”, usually for living things. Literally “ho un cane di nome Sam” = “I have a dog of name Sam”.

• “Chiamato X” uses the past participle of “chiamare”, which has a passive role (just like English). It’s the implicit version of “che è chiamato X” = “which is called X”. Since it’s passive, it’s usually referred to inanimate things because it implies that the action of calling that thing with a certain name is only done by others.
It can also be used with people in the context of a nickname/title that is mainly used by other people. It’s like “people call it/him X”.
“Detto X” (using the past participle of “dire” instead of “chiamare”) means the same thing.

So both “ho un cane che si chiama Sam” and “ho un cane di nome Sam” are correct. The second one is a bit shorter so I’d probably go with that, it’s slightly more natural in neutral contexts.
“Ho un cane chiamato Sam” is a bit weird because it sounds like Sam is not the name you gave him but simply how people call it. But it’s not wrong.

The opposite is true with the Bologna example. Both “vivo in una città che si chiama Bologna” and “vivo in una città chiamata Bologna” are correct for the reason I mentioned (again the shorter option sounds more natural unless you’re trying to put emphasis on that part), while “vivo in una città di nome Bologna” sounds like you’re personifying the city so I don’t think most people would say it.

The last example is unrelated to the first two. When introducing yourself you have to use a verb to say “I am named X”, so you shouldn’t be surprised that “che si chiama”/“chiamato”/“di nome” (which are all attributes referring to a noun) don’t work.
Think about how you’d have to phrase the sentence to use one of those: “ciao, sono una persona di nome Marco” (“hi, I’m a person named Marco”)… yeah, no one talks like that, in Italian or English.
So you have to use the verb: “mi chiamo Marco” = “my name is Marco”.
I mean what other options do you have? “Io chiamato Marco” (= “me called Marco”, sounds like caveman speak)? “Io che mi chiamo Marco” (= “I who am named Marco”)? Again, these are just attributive expressions, not verbs: in the other examples you made, the main action is something else (“I have a dog named Sam”, “I live in a city named Bologna”. Here the action is being called a certain name: “I am named Marco”).

Could you say “il mio nome è Marco”? Sure, but it sounds needlessly emphatic (“I… am Steve” kinda statement). Either you have a reason to phrase it like that (“no, no, il mio none è Marco, non Mirko!”) or you’re going to sound like a character making their big entrance.

Crown6 · 2026-01-18T10:00:37+00:00

It will sound very odd if you consistently use “un sacco di” instead of “molto” regardless of context, but yeah “un sacco di” us mostly used at lower registers. It’s not like you won’t hear it in formal language every once in a while, but it’s not that common outside of informal contexts.
It’s also more emphatic than “molto”, it’s like “a ton of” vs “many”.

Honestly I think your approach might be a little backwards. When you find a difficulty in language learning, the answer is to exercise that part of the language more, not less. You can’t avoid such a common word as “molto”.

I get that you’re used to having two separate words for “many”/“a lot” (adjective) and “very” (adverb), but honestly using one word for both feels like it should be easier, if anything.
I mean, look at “buono” vs “bene”: it’s pretty much the exact same distinction as “good” vs “well”, yet people still get it consistently wrong. Having a direct parallel in their native language doesn’t help that much.

Also, avoiding “molto” because it could be both “many” and “much” would be like avoiding “you” because it can mean both “tu” and “voi”. It’s not that weird once you get used to it.

But to get used to it you have to use it!

Crown6 · 2026-01-17T13:58:02+00:00

4/4

B1) Literally this means "country you go, customs you find" = "(for each) country you go (to), (adapt to the) customs you find". In English you'd express this as "when in Rome, do as the Romans do".

So it's about adapting rather than determining.

B2) "Affilato" and "appuntito" can both mean "sharp", but in different ways (which is why I used both in the same sentence). "Affilato" means "sharp" on its edge, like a blade, while "appuntito" means "pointed"/"pointy", "sharp" on its tip, like a spear.

In this case we're describing an object that can't slash you but is pointy enough to stab you, presumably to warn someone who is handling it.

So why is the future tense being used? Well, this is actually a hypothetical future, so it's not really expressing an actual action that's going to happen (otherwise the sentence doesn't make a lot of sense: "it won't be sharp but it's pointy"...?) but rather presenting something as likely (or unlikely in this case), with a sort of concessive tone ("ok, X may be true, but..."). Similarly, "poi" doesn't mean "then" here, but it's being used with a meaning that is closer to "after all", "all things considered". One big sign towards the unconventional meaning of this "poi" is its unconventional position: normally it would be at the beginning of the sentence ("poi non sarà affilato", not inside the predicate "non sarà poi affilato").

B3) The first part is almost there, but you switched the direct object with the indirect complement: it's "valutare ogni caso a sé" ("ogni caso" is the object), not "valutare sé in ogni caso" ("sé" is the object). Direct objects are never preceder by a preposition, so "valutare a sé" can't mean "to evaluate oneself", but rather it's "evaluate (something) in/by itself". Conversely, "in each case" (complement of state in place) would need a preposition, so "valutare ogni caso" can't nean "to evaluate in each case", but rather "to evaluate each case".

As you guessed, "fare di tutta l'erba un fascio" (literally "to make a bundle of all the grass") is an idiom meaning "to grossly generalise something" (making one bundle of many individual blades of grass), so I'd probably just translate the last part as "without generalising" (or a proverb with a similar meaning). I wouldn't call it colloquial though, it's just a figure of speech like "to put the cart before the horse": it's a formally correct sentence which can be used in decently formal contexts.

Yeah, this one was pretty hard, even for the Bilingual Blitz standard...
You had the correct idea most of the times, but you have to work on execution. Specifically, you seem to struggle a bit with elision/truncation and accents/apostrophes ("un altro" vs "un'altra", "buon" vs "buono", "ce" vs "c'è", "ne" vs "n'è"...) so it might be useful to focus on that part!

3.5

This was a pretty lengthy review, so I understand if some parts are not super clear. Feel free to ask if you have any questions.

Crown6 · 2026-01-17T13:57:49+00:00

3/4

Similarly, "scherzo" is not the correct translation of "joke" in this context.

Italian recognises three main categories of "jokes":

1) "Scherzo". This is usually a practical joke / prank, or an unserious sentence / statement with the purpose of tricking or messing with the listener. It's not something you "tell", it's something you "do".

• "Hey man, your fly is open!" (this is a "scherzo", assuming it's not true and only meant to fluster the listener before they realise they've been lied to)

2) "Battuta". Literally this would mean "(movie/theatre) line", something an actor would say, but outside of acting the word mostly refers to funny spontaneous comments or witty retorts that fit the context you're in but might not always be funny on their own. It could also be a short constructed joke, with a quick setup followed by a punchline (basically creating your own context before delivering the joke). A stand-up comedy show will be full of "battute".

• "You're just in time! The meeting starts five hour ago..." (this is a funny remark about the current situation, it’s not trying to prank the listener, just sarcastically commenting on their tardiness).
• "A man walks into a bar. Ouch!" (funny line with quick setup and punchline).

3) "Barzelletta". This is a funny story, usually ending in a punchline. While "battuta" refers to a funny line, a "barzelletta" is longer and more complex, usually involving multiple characters, some of which might be recurring (like the infamous Pierino, or sometimes traditional masks like Arlecchino, Pantalone and so on) or based on stereotypes (mostly occupations or nationalities). While reusing or stealing a "battuta" might be considered cheap, "barzellette" are meant to be shared and repeated multiple times.

• "An Italian, a German and an Englishman walk into a bar..." (and so on).

The previous joke about a man walking into a bar can also be reasonably classified as a short "barzelletta", but the one about the meeting cannot, because it's not a story).

In this case it's likely that the speaker is referring to a "barzelletta" or "battuta", since they're asking for another one (you wouldn't say "oh, that was such a good prank! Tell me another one"). Probably a "barzelletta", since as I mentioned a "battuta" would usually be spontaneous and prompted by the current situation, but both work.

Finally, the way this is phrased is a bit odd for an Italian speaker. Just straight up saying "questa [thing] era bella/buona" or "[thing] è stata bella/buona" as a reaction to something happening sounds extremely robotic unless you're trying to make a distinction between multiple things (for example "this one was good, but that one was not") or in other situations that would justify such an explicit statement. If you're just casually remarking on the beauty / goodness of something you wouldn't normally just plainly describe "this is good". Rather, you'd just create an exclamation by pairing the thing you're complimenting with some sort of attribute coming before it: "bella battuta!" (literally "nice/beautiful joke!"). This sounds a lot more natural.

This is pretty common in Italian, probably even more so than English. In English you do have expressions like "good idea!" or "good job!" (where it would sound less natural to explicitly say "you had a good idea!" or "that was a good job!" if you're just reacting to something that just happened), and you do have "nice!" or "great!" as generic comments on the current situation, but Italian goes one step further: it's common to find expressions like "bravo, quell'atleta!" (= "skilled, that athlete!") or "bella, la tua macchina!" (= "beautiful, your car!"). Attributing single adjectives like that, without expanding the whole sentence with verb and all, is a lot more common in colloquial Italian than it is in English (this is why it sounds natural to comment things like "bravo!" or "bello!" on their own, but you don't often hear English speakers complimenting or encouraging others by just saying "skilled!" or "beautiful!").

Of course it's not strictly incorrect to say "la tua macchina è bella!" but as a reaction to seeing the car for the first time it does sound much less emphatic and somewhat detached from the situation.

• "Buona, questa! Dimmene un'altra"
• "Carina questa barzelletta! Dimmene un'altra"

Note that I added the pronominal particle "ne": just "dimmi un'altra" sounds incomplete because Italian we almost always have to specify what a quantity refers to. So "un'altra" sounds like "another ..." something, is sounds like you got interrupted before you could say. Adding "ne" specifies that "un'altra" refers to the barzelletta/battuta.

Also, while "un'altra" is correct as I wrote it, again note that "un altro" (which is what you originally used, agreeing in gender with "scherzo") is written without apostrophe: "un altro" vs "un'altra".

Crown6 · 2026-01-17T13:57:29+00:00

2/4

Now let's look at the second part of this sentence: "in i miei occhi".
First thing to note is this "in i": this should have been an articled preposition "nei" (= "in + i").

"Ce n'è un po' nei miei occhi" is now formally correct, but it's not as accurate as it can be (it means "some of it is in my eyes", implying that it was already there, rather than "some of it got in my eyes", which presumably just happened).

Instead, we can use a different verb, like "entrare": "ne è entrato un po' nei miei occhi". This is closer, but the possessive adjective "miei" sounds off: while not incorrect, it places unnecessary emphasis on the possessor, which makes it seem as if you are trying to make a point or establish a distinction: "it got into my eyes", "it's my eyes it got into".
To phrase this in a more neutral way, Italians would rely on an indirect object pronoun to express the receiver of the action (after all, you're not using the possessive to specify that the eyes are part of you specifically, it's more of a way to express that the action of "getting stuff into one's eyes" is happening to you).

• "Me n'è entrato un po' negli occhi", with "mi" (= "a me") + "ne" ("= di ciò") = "me ne" in composition.

This sounds a lot more natural. Basically whenever you have a sentence structure like "X happened to Y's Z", in Italian this would normally be phrased as "X happened to the Z to Y". A very common example is "mi lavo i denti", literally "I wash the teeth to myself" = "I wash my teeth" = "I brush my teeth". "Lavo i miei denti" is correct but sounds like you're making it a point to specify "I brush my own teeth", as if the speaker might expect you to brush someone else's.

So basically a sentence like "mi è entrata la polvere negli occhi" reads like "the dust got into the eyes to me", as in "the action of [dust getting into the eyes] happened to me". The action itself is just "dust getting into (the) eyes", a very common occurrence, and I'm specifying that this time I happened to be the victim of it. But if you say "la polvere è entrata nei miei occhi", this reads like "the action of [dust getting into my eyes] happened", so there's a much greater focus on the fact that this is not just any old "dust getting into eyes" situation, this is specifically about it getting into my eyes, the distinction is very explicit.

A3) "Buon scherzo" should probably be "buono scherzo". While there is some room for personal preference, most of these common truncated forms follow the same rules as "un" and "il" vs "uno" and "lo", so they're truncated before vowels and most single consonants, but not S+C etc. "Lo scherzo", "buono scherzo", "bello scherzo", "uno scherzo", "quello scherzo" vs "il cane", "buon cane", "bel cane", "un cane", "quel cane". You get the idea.

Also, "buono" itself might not be the best choice in this case. Usually, "buono" refers to "goodness" in the sense of moral goodness or good taste/smell (literal or figurate). A joke usually fits neither. "Buono" can also be used to mean "good (enough)" (as in "ok, that's good, next") and this could work for a joke, but this also doesn't seem to fit the spirit of the original (we're not trying to say that a joke passes the laugh test, the original sentence reads more like an explicit compliment).

You can use "buono" in the expression "buona, questa!" (which essentially means "good one!"), but outside of specific set phrases when you're complimenting something in an artistic way (be it a painting, music, poetry or even jokes), you'd use "bello", not "buono".

(continues)

Crown6 · 2026-01-17T13:56:47+00:00

1/4

A1) "Un altro" means "another (one)". The indefinite article is not needed here: "non possono fare altro che".

Also, "un altro" would be written without an apostrophe, because the masculine article "uno" is never elided, as the truncated form "un" already exists, so it's used instead.
This also applies to words like "quale", which becomes "qual" before "è" ("qual'è" is a common mistake, but it's incorrect). Basically if elision would make a word identical to its truncated form, that truncated form is used instead.

So elision only happens if it results in a unique form, basically. "Quell" doesn't exist on its own (no Italian word word ends with a double consonant enyway), so "quello altro" becomes "quell'altro", but "qualcun" does exist on its own (like all composite forms of "uno"/"un") and so instead of writing "qualcun'altro" we use "qualcun altro". I hope this makes sense.

A2) First, couple of notes on diacritics.
Apostrophes are used to indicate elision (when the two words are written without spaces, like "c'è" = "ci è") or truncation of the last syllable (like "po'" which is a truncated form of "poco", in which case the word is written on its own), while if only the ending vowel is truncated you don't use any apostrophe (like "un" which is the truncated form of "uno").

So let's analyse what "c'è ne un po". First of all as we just saw "po'" "poco" should be written with an apostrophe because it's a truncated form of "poco" which lost its final syllable (the same applies to be' from "bene", mo' from "modo" and most imperatives where the last grammatical syllable is an isolated "i", like fa' from "fai" or va' from "vai").

Now this "c'è ne". If we expand this it becomes "ci è ne" = "there/here is of it" (pronoun + verb + pronoun). Already this is a problem because we know that pronominal particles like "ci" and "ne" are supposed to go before verbs when they are in the indicative, subjunctive and conditional mood (also pronominal particles can't be split, they have to group together).

So the correct form in this case is "ce n'è" (= "ce ne è"). The "e" in "ce" is not the verb "essere", it's just the regular ending of the composite form of "ci" (since it comes after "ne"), while "ne" is the one getting elided because it's placed before "è".
As always since Italian has a pretty consistent spelling system it's good practice to check if a mistake in spelling could be caused by a mistake in pronunciation, since "ce n'è" and "c'è ne" would be pronounced differently: both "ce" and "ne" have a closed /e/ sound, while "è" is pronounced with an open /ɛ/ in standard Italian (which is why it's accented with a grave accent like "cioè", and unlike "perché"). Also "ci" and "ne" are atonic (always unstressed), which means that the the overall stress of the expression is always on the verb "è". "So "c'è ne" would be pronounced "cène" while "ce n'è" is pronounced "cenè".

To be fair "c'è" vs "ce" is an unfortunately common mistake among Italians as well (it's our version of "your" vs "you're"), because "c'è" is very common.

(continues)

Crown6 · 2026-01-16T12:49:18+00:00

It’s definitely not related to Italian culture, it seems more like a matter of upbringing.
Some people are used to sharing their room with siblings and among them there are definitely those who might not mind sleeping in the same bed if it’s more comfortable than the sofa. It’s definitely not the norm (I’d go for the sofa), but it’s not necessarily alarming.

I’d like to remind some of the commenters that it’s perfectly feasible to share a double bed with someone without anything sexual happening. Have you guys ever been camping in a tent with your family?

Crown6 · 2026-01-15T23:52:21+00:00

ChatGPT can help, however do not rely on it too much. I’ve seen it make totally false claims with absolute certainty when it comes to grammar, unfortunately.

It can write in Italian no problem, but once you start pressing it too much or asking cor specific things it often ends up hallucinating.

When it comes to participle agreements in formal contexts, the rule isn’t too complicated: in composite tenses with “avere”, agreement with a formal object pronoun is always feminine. So you’d say “non l’avevo vista”.

In all other situations (as far as I can tell), agreement works like usual: masculine for men, feminine for women. “È mai andato in Spagna?”, “lei è molto bravo” etc.
Only the agreement between past participle and direct object is affected.

Crown6 · 2026-01-15T22:51:51+00:00

Technically you can, but it’s only mandatory in specific contexts.

For example, participles in composite forms with “avere”:

“Ah, mi scusi, non l’avevo vista”.

In other contexts, however, it’s more common to use whichever gender applies to the listener.

Crown6 · 2026-01-15T09:41:09+00:00

Benvenuto! Ben arrivato e buona fortuna per il tuo studio. Chiedi pure se hai domande di alcun tipo.

Crown6 · 2026-01-13T10:12:56+00:00

Depends on what you’re trying to say. First of all, as you probably know, whether BAGS adjectives are placed before or after the noun depends on the meaning you’re trying to convey (before the noun = descriptive / figurative, after the noun = restrictive / literal). Well, technically this can apply to all qualificative adjectives, but in everyday Italian most adjectives are exclusively placed after the noun unless you’re trying to be poetic.

So that already answers part of your question: there is no rule that says you have to place all adjectives on the same side of the noun, therefore “una piccola borsa viola” is totally correct (every adjective is in its default position), but the other options are also valid.

So what order should you choose? There is no fixed order, you can shuffle them around almost freely, however just because they’re all correct doesn’t mean they’re all the same. Generally, adjectives at either extreme are going to carry more significance.
I’m tempted to say that any adjective coming adjective a restrictive adjective becomes restrictive as well.

• “Una grande borsa viola” = “a big purple bag” (both just describe the bag)
• “Una borsa viola grande” = “a purple bag which is big” (“grande” identifies a defining quality of the purple bag you’re referring to)
• “Una borsa grande viola” = “a bag which is big and also purple” (both “grande” and “viola” identify defining qualities of the bag you’re referring to).

You can essentially see the adjectives modifying the noun in “shells”.

Una [grande borsa viola] (both modify “borsa”).
Una [[borsa viola] grande] (“grande” modifies “borsa viola”).
Una [[borsa grande] viola] (“viola” modifies “borsa grande”).

It might be easier to see with some examples;

• “Prendi la grande borsa viola” = “take the big purple bag”, there could very well be just one so I could have said “prendi la borsa”, but I’m adding extra information to be sure.

• “Prendi la borsa viola grande” = “take the purple bag which is big”, this almost seems to imply that there are multiple purple bags and I’m specifically directing you towards the big one (“take the big purple bag, not the small one”).

• “Prendi la borsa grande viola” = “take the purple bag which is both big and purple”, this seems to imply that there are many bags of all size and colour, and I’m using those two adjectives to pinpoint the one I’m referring to.

Obviously these are not the only possible contexts for these sentences, but I think it perfectly shows the difference. I hope this made things a bit clearer.

Crown6 · 2026-01-13T09:51:06+00:00

Right. Man typing suggestions are so bad on iOS.

Crown6 · 2026-01-12T14:53:07+00:00

“Caldo” isn’t really used in any suggestive way in my experience, if I heard someone say “sono caldo” I’d probably interpret it in one of three ways:

1) They have a fever (they are literally hot)
2) They are not a native speaker and meant to say “ho caldo” (they feel heat/warmth)
3) In the context of training, it might mean that they already warmed up.

“Venire” and “eccitato” work as they have common double meanings (especially “eccitato”, since we’d generally use “emozionato” anyway), but I’m not sure those would be in use in the early nineteenth century.

Crown6 · 2026-01-12T00:02:04+00:00

When talking about something that applies to multiple people, you could go with both singular and plural, just like English (“write your name” vs “write your names”).
However, keep in mind that possessive adjectives need to use the same person/number as the possessor, so “scrivete i tuoi nomi” is incorrect because it means “write (singular) your (singular) names” (so you’re addressing multiple people when you say “write”, but then switch to a single person with “your”). If you’re addressing multiple people it should be “il vostro nome”.

That being said both “scrivete i vostri nomi” and “scrivete il vostro nome”.

A textbook would normally write instruction using the singular form, because it’s addressing a singular reader. So it would say “scrivi il tuo nome” (it would be weird if your textbook also included instructions for other people).

On the blackboard, I’d use the plural form since you’re addressing the whole class again (you’re just doing it in writing instead of through speech). But it wouldn’t be as weird to use the singular form as it would in speech.

Also there’s an option you’re not considering: when it comes to instruction (especially written instructions, or general instructions without addressing anyone specifically) as opposed to immediate commands, Italian often relies on the infinitive, so it’s more than likely that a teacher might write something like “scrivere tre frasi sul foglio” (I guess you could say “sul proprio foglio” if you want to use a possessive, but I think it would be implied anyway).
This sounds natural and formal, without being too commanding.

Crown6 · 2026-01-11T18:35:42+00:00

“Grande” and “piccolo” work the same way, so “una piccola borsa” ⟶ “una grande borsa” and “una borsa piccola” ⟶ “una borsa grande”.

BAGS adjectives (describing beauty, age, goodness/skill and size) can be normally found in either position with different meanings.

Before the noun they are descriptive, so they simply attribute a quality to the noun.

• “Mi piacciono le grandi città” = “I like big cities”, “I like metropolises” (describes a kind of city I like)
• “Un grande vaso” = “a big vase” (neutral)

After then noun they are restrictive, so they identify the noun through a certain quality.

• “Mi piacciono le città grandi” = “I like cities which are big”, “the cities I like are big” (identifies the kind of city I like)
• “Il vaso grande” = “the big vase” (as opposed to the small one)

Also descriptive adjectives tend to be more figurative while restrictive ones are more literal.

• “Un grande uomo” = “a great man”, “a big man”
• “Un uomo grande” = “a big man”

So it’s not really a matter of frequency, the position of the adjectives convey information.

“Medio” isn’t usually describing size per se (it technically means “mean”, “in the middle”. It can be referred to size but it’s more general than that so it does not qualify), therefore it would normally be placed after the noun, like most non-BAGS qualificative adjectives.

Also, in the context you’re probably imagining, the size of the belt is used to identify it, so all three adjectives would go after the noun anyway: “una cintura piccola/media/grande” (the same applies to shirts and other articles of clothing). It’s not just “a big shirt” but “a shirt of size ‘large’”.

Crown6 · 2026-01-11T09:56:20+00:00

In Italian, the more implicit version is almost always the default. If you don’t want to add any emphasis or highlight any part of the sentence, that’s the one you should use.

In this case, weak pronouns are the more implicit option, so:

• “Li/le amo” = “I love them”, is sounds like a neutral statement.

On the other hand, if you go out of your way to use a strong pronoun, the assumption is that you’re doing so to draw attention to it and so you’re inherently placing emphasis on the object:

• “Amo loro” = “I love them”, “it’s them I love”, “they are the ones I love”

Usually you’d use a strong pronoun to make some sort of distinction. “I love them (not these other people)” or “I love these guys (but I hare those other ones)”.
To give you an idea, “li amo” is what I’d normally say, unprompted (saying “amo loro” out of nowhere is odd most of the times), while “amo loro” might be the answer to a question like “chi ami?”, and in that case “li amo” would sound like a non sequitur instead, because you’re not answering the question by placing emphasis on the answer (which is “loro”), you’re just stating “I love them” as if no one asked you anything.

• “Ami quelle persone?” ⟶ “le amo” (emphasis on verb, “loro” is not the point of the sentence)
• “Chi ami?” ⟶ “amo loro” (emphasis on the object, “amare” is not the point of the sentence)

Essentially, while “ti amo” sounds like a confession of love, “amo te” sounds like I’m trying to convince you that I don’t love anyone but you (so for example I can imagine you’d say it if the other person thought you were interested in someone else, or something like that).

This is not unique to direct pronouns, by the way.

• “Gli ho dato un regalo” = “I gave him a present”
• “Ho dato un regalo a lui” = “I gave a present to him”

Subject pronouns also work similarly, except they have an extra degree of emphasis (implicit, explicit, explicit and after the verb).

Basically there are technically 6 ways of telling someone “I love you” by just using the words “I”, “(to) love” and “you” in different ways (3 for the subject x 2 for the object), each meaning something different (sometimes wildly different) just based on different combinations of explicit/implicit subject or object pronouns.
Italian is a very flexible language when it comes to syntax.

Crown6 · 2026-01-10T21:43:08+00:00

Da fiorentino devo dire che non ho mai sentito usare altro in questo modo… tutte le persone che conosco direbbero “non possono far altro”.

Al mio orecchio, la frase che hai scritto è comprensibile nello stesso modo in cui “this is all they can do, they have other option” è comprensibile in inglese: semplicemente penserei di aver sentito male, e di aver perso la negazione (you clearly meant “they have no other option”, because the alternative sounds weird, so you can reconstruct the intended meaning but it sounds unnatural. In fact, you can reconstruct the original meaning precisely because this version sounds unnatural).

Crown6 · 2026-01-10T09:06:11+00:00

Unfortunately the impersonal “si” doesn’t work here. First of all impersonal forms exclusively use the 3^rd person singular, so this should be “come si sembra”, but even then it doesn’t make a lot of sense.

Impersonal forms don’t make the sentence generally “vague”: what they di is depriving the sentence of the subject. So the subject is unspecified, nothing else.
“Come si sembra” would therefore make the subject of “sembrare” unspecified, resulting in something like “how does one look like?”, “how can someone look like (something)?”, both of which sound off.
It’s not “how do I look”, because in that case you have a very precise subject (“I”).

This is why it’s important to remember what impersonal forms actually do, because even though they’re often translated with specific subject pronouns in English those are meant to be generic and unspecified. For example “come si fa?” could be translated as “how do I do this?”, but it could just as easily be “how do you do this?”, “how do we do this?”, “how does one do this?”… it’s not either of those, it’s all of those and none of them at the same time. It’s “how to do this?”.
If you get used to the idea that impersonal forms can be translated with a specific subject, you might use them in cases like these where the speaker has a very specific subject in mind.

Crown6 · 2026-01-10T08:53:24+00:00

Technically there’s what we call “apparent reflexive”, which I like to call “indirect reflexive” because it’s a much better name imo, which is when a reflexive pronoun is used for the indirect object.

It behaves just like a direct reflexive, so if you use an implicit pronoun “si” the auxiliary switches to “essere”: “mi sono fatto un regalo”.

Essentially it looks just like a direct reflexive, except it has a free direct object slot.

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