Questions & Answers about Dobbiamo evacuare l'ufficio.
What does dobbiamo mean, and what verb does it come from?
Dobbiamo is the present tense, first-person plural form of dovere.
- dovere = to have to / must
- dobbiamo = we have to / we must
So the subject is we.
Why is evacuare in the infinitive form?
Because after the modal verb dovere, Italian normally uses an infinitive.
Pattern:
So:
- dobbiamo evacuare = we must evacuate
You do not add di here.
So dobbiamo evacuare is correct, not dobbiamo di evacuare.
Does dobbiamo mean must or have to?
Why is it l'ufficio and not il ufficio?
Is ufficio masculine or feminine?
Why is there no preposition before l'ufficio?
Because l'ufficio is the direct object of evacuare.
In this sentence:
- Noi (understood) = subject
- dobbiamo = verb
- evacuare = infinitive verb
- l'ufficio = the thing being evacuated
Italian, like English, does not use a preposition before a direct object here.
Can I say Noi dobbiamo evacuare l'ufficio?
Why is the article the included? Could I just say evacuare ufficio?
How is this sentence pronounced?
A rough pronunciation is:
dohb-BYAH-mo eh-vah-KWAH-reh loo-FEE-choh
A few helpful points:
- dobbiamo has stress on -bbià-
- evacuare has stress on -à-
- ufficio has stress on -fì-
- ci in ufficio sounds like ch in church
Also notice that the bb in dobbiamo is a double consonant, so it is held a little longer than a single b.
How would I make this sentence negative or turn it into a question?
For the negative, put non before the conjugated verb:
- Non dobbiamo evacuare l'ufficio.
= We must not / do not have to evacuate the office
(The exact English meaning depends on context, so be careful.)
For a question, Italian often keeps the same word order and changes the intonation:
- Dobbiamo evacuare l'ufficio?
= Do we have to evacuate the office?
Is evacuare the most natural verb here?
Yes, evacuare is a normal and natural verb, especially in an emergency or safety context.
It is often used when people must leave a building, room, or area.
A related verb is sgomberare, which can mean to clear out or empty, but it is not always exactly the same. In many emergency situations, evacuare is the clearest choice.
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