Il DNA contiene informazioni.

In Italian, nouns usually need an article more often than they do in English. So Il DNA is the normal way to say DNA as the subject of a sentence.

Even though English often says just DNA contains information, Italian commonly says Il DNA contiene informazioni.

Here il means the, and DNA is treated as a masculine singular noun.

DNA is conventionally treated as masculine singular in Italian, so it takes il.

This is mostly a matter of usage: acronyms in Italian are often assigned a grammatical gender, and DNA is normally masculine. So you say:

• il DNA
• del DNA
• nel DNA

Yes, Italians normally use DNA.

Even though the full Italian term is acido desossiribonucleico, the common abbreviation is still DNA, not a different Italian-style acronym. So Il DNA contiene informazioni sounds completely natural.

Contiene comes from the verb contenere, meaning to contain.

In this sentence, contiene is:

• present tense
• third person singular
• used with il DNA

So:

• io contengo = I contain
• tu contieni = you contain
• lui/lei contiene = he/she/it contains

Because il DNA is singular, the verb is contiene.

Because contenere is an irregular verb. It does not follow the simplest regular -ere pattern all the way through.

Its present tense forms are:

• io contengo
• tu contieni
• lui/lei contiene
• noi conteniamo
• voi contenete
• loro contengono

So contiene is simply the correct he/she/it form.

Informazioni is plural. The singular is informazione.

So:

• un’informazione = a piece of information / one item of information
• informazioni = information / pieces of information

This is a useful difference from English, because English information is usually uncountable, while Italian often uses the countable plural informazioni very naturally.

In Italian, plural nouns can appear without an article when speaking in a general sense.

So contiene informazioni means contains information in a broad, non-specific way.

If you add an article, the meaning becomes more specific:

• Il DNA contiene informazioni. = DNA contains information.
• Il DNA contiene delle informazioni importanti. = DNA contains some important information.
• Il DNA contiene le informazioni necessarie. = DNA contains the necessary information.

Usually, Il DNA contiene informazioni sounds more natural.

While informazione is a real singular noun, Italian often prefers the plural informazioni in general statements like this one. Using the singular here would sound less idiomatic in most contexts.

So for a learner, the safest and most natural version is:

• Il DNA contiene informazioni.

The normal word order is:

• Il DNA = subject
• contiene = verb
• informazioni = object

So Il DNA contiene informazioni is the most neutral and natural order.

Italian can sometimes change word order for emphasis, but in a basic statement like this, the standard order is best.

Contiene is pronounced approximately con-TYEH-ne.

A few helpful points:

• the stress is on -tie-
• ti + e here sounds like tye
• the final e is pronounced, not silent

So it is roughly:

• con-TYEH-ne

In Italian, the letters are pronounced separately:

• D = di
• N = enne
• A = a

So DNA is pronounced roughly like:

• dee-EN-ne-AH

More exactly, Italians say the names of the letters one by one: di-enne-a.

In most ordinary Italian, Il DNA contiene informazioni is better.

Leaving out the article can happen in special styles, such as headlines, notes, or very technical writing, but for normal sentences, using il is the standard choice.

So if you are learning, prefer:

• Il DNA contiene informazioni.