La giostra gira accanto al labirinto.

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Breakdown of La giostra gira accanto al labirinto.

• girare: to turn
• la giostra: the carousel; fairground ride
• il labirinto: the maze

Questions & Answers about La giostra gira accanto al labirinto.

Why is it gira and not girare?

Because gira is the conjugated verb form, while girare is the infinitive.

• girare = to turn / to spin / to go around
• gira = it turns / it spins

Here the subject is la giostra (the merry-go-round / carousel), which is third person singular, so the verb changes accordingly:

• io giro = I turn
• tu giri = you turn
• lui/lei gira = he/she/it turns

So La giostra gira means The merry-go-round turns / is spinning.

Why does the sentence start with La giostra? Is Italian word order the same as English?

This sentence uses the very common Italian word order:

subject + verb + phrase

• La giostra = subject
• gira = verb
• accanto al labirinto = prepositional phrase

So yes, this sentence is structurally close to English.

Italian word order is often flexible, but the most neutral version here is exactly this one: La giostra gira accanto al labirinto.

You could move things around in other contexts for emphasis, but this is the standard, natural order.

What exactly does giostra mean here?