Culliamo il bambino perché è stanco.

Culliamo is the present indicative, first person plural form of cullare.

So it means we rock, we cradle, or we soothe by rocking.

In this sentence, it suggests physically or gently rocking the child, probably to comfort him or help him rest.

Italian often leaves out subject pronouns when they are not needed, because the verb ending already shows who is doing the action.

• culliamo = we rock
• so noi is optional

You could say Noi culliamo il bambino, but it would usually add emphasis, like we are the ones rocking him.

In Italian, definite articles are used more often than in English.

So il bambino literally means the child. In many situations, Italian prefers the article where English might sometimes be less explicit.

Here, il bambino is just the normal way to say the child / the baby / the boy, depending on context.

Not always. Bambino can mean:

• child
• little boy
• sometimes even baby, depending on context

Grammatically, it is a masculine singular noun. If the child were female, you would say la bambina.

Here perché means because.

Italian perché can also mean why in questions, but in this sentence it introduces a reason:

• Culliamo il bambino perché è stanco.
• We rock the child because he is tired.

So here it is clearly because, not why.

Perché has an accent because the stress falls on the final -ché.

In written Italian, words stressed on the last syllable often take a written accent. So perché is the standard spelling.

This is different from perche, which is not standard Italian spelling in this use.

È means is and is the third person singular of essere (to be).

It has an accent to distinguish it from e, which means and.

So:

• è = is
• e = and

This is a very important spelling difference in Italian.

The tired person is understood to be the child.

That is because stanco is masculine singular, which matches il bambino.

It cannot refer to we, because we are tired would be:

• siamo stanchi (if the group is masculine or mixed)
• siamo stanche (if the group is all female)

So perché è stanco means because he is tired.

Italian often omits subjects when they are clear from the context.

So instead of saying:

• perché il bambino è stanco

it is very natural to say:

• perché è stanco

The listener understands that the subject is still il bambino.

A little, but not much in practice.

Because è stanco is masculine singular, it points to a singular masculine subject, and the nearest logical one is il bambino.

So most people would naturally understand:

• We rock the child because he is tired.

If you wanted to be extra explicit, you could say:

• Culliamo il bambino perché il bambino è stanco.

But that sounds repetitive, so the shorter version is more natural.

Stanco is the normal adjective meaning tired.

So:

• è stanco = he is tired

Stancato exists as a past participle of stancare (to tire), but it is not the usual choice here. A learner should normally use stanco to say that someone feels tired.

A helpful approximate pronunciation is:

cool-LYAH-mo

More precisely:

• cu sounds like coo
• lli here flows into -lià-
• stress falls on -lia-

So the word sounds roughly like cool-LYAH-mo.

Yes. Italian word order is flexible, though the original sentence is very natural.

You could also say:

• Perché è stanco, culliamo il bambino.

This still makes sense, but it puts more focus on the reason first.

The original order is probably the most straightforward and natural for a learner: Culliamo il bambino perché è stanco.

Yes.

• culliamo = present tense of cullare
• è = present tense of essere

So the sentence is talking about a present action and a present state: We are rocking the child because he is tired.

Depending on context, English might also translate it a little more flexibly, but grammatically it is present tense in Italian.