L'escape room contiene un enigma.

The apostrophe shows elision: the final vowel of the article drops before a word that starts with a vowel sound.

Here, l' stands for the article before escape room. With vowel-initial nouns, Italian often shortens the article this way:

• la amica → l'amica
• lo studente does not elide because studente does not begin with a vowel
• la escape room → l'escape room

So l'escape room is the natural written form.

Yes, escape room is commonly used in Italian as a borrowed English expression. Italian very often keeps modern entertainment or tech terms in English.

So a native speaker may naturally say:

• l'escape room
• le escape room

A more fully Italian phrase is possible in some contexts, but escape room is normal and widely understood.

It is usually treated as feminine: la / l'escape room.

That said, with some English loanwords you may occasionally hear variation, especially in casual speech. But feminine is the safest choice for a learner.

In this sentence, you only see l', so the gender is not obvious from the article alone, because both masculine and feminine singular articles can become l' before a vowel. You learn the gender from usage: l'escape room is generally feminine.

Contiene is the third-person singular present tense of contenere, meaning to contain.

So:

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

In your sentence, the subject is l'escape room, which is singular, so the verb is singular too:

• L'escape room contiene... = The escape room contains...

Not completely. It follows the pattern of tenere and has a stem change in some forms, so it is better thought of as an irregular verb.

Some present-tense forms are:

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

So contiene is one of those forms you should learn as part of the verb pattern.

Because enigma is a masculine singular noun beginning with a vowel, and the masculine indefinite article before most vowel-initial nouns is un.

So:

• un enigma
• un amico
• un errore

You use uno before certain masculine nouns beginning with special consonant sounds, such as:

• uno studente
• uno zaino
• uno psicologo

Since enigma starts with a vowel, un is correct.

This is a very common learner question. In Italian, many nouns ending in -a are feminine, but not all of them.

Enigma is one of a group of nouns of Greek origin that are masculine even though they end in -a. Other examples include:

• il problema
• il sistema
• il tema
• il programma

So you should memorize enigma as:

• l'enigma = the enigma/riddle
• un enigma = an enigma/riddle

Grammatically, Italian allows different word orders more than English does, but that version changes the meaning because it changes the subject.

• L'escape room contiene un enigma = the escape room contains a puzzle
• Un enigma contiene l'escape room = a puzzle contains the escape room

So the original order matters here because it clearly shows what is containing what.

You could, however, move things around for emphasis in other ways, for example:

• Un enigma lo contiene l'escape room

But that is much less neutral and not the simplest version for a learner.

Yes, in a normal sentence like this, the definite article is expected:

• L'escape room contiene un enigma.

Leaving it out would sound unnatural in standard Italian:

• Escape room contiene un enigma ❌

Italian uses articles more often than English does, especially with singular countable nouns used in a general but still specific sentence context.

A natural plural version would be:

• Le escape room contengono enigmi.

Here is what changed:

• l'escape room → le escape room
• contiene → contengono
• un enigma → enigmi or degli enigmi, depending on meaning

A few notes:

• escape room usually stays unchanged in the plural because it is a foreign expression
• enigma becomes enigmi
• contengono is the third-person plural form of contenere

They overlap, but they are not always identical.

• enigma = an enigma, puzzle, something mysterious or to be solved
• indovinello = a riddle, often verbal and playful
• rompicapo = a brainteaser, something mentally challenging

In the context of an escape room, enigma is very natural because it can refer broadly to a puzzle or challenge that must be solved.

So un enigma works well in this sentence.

It is pronounced roughly con-TYE-ne.

A few helpful points:

• the stress falls on -tie-
• ie here forms part of the stressed syllable
• the final e is pronounced, not silent

So it sounds approximately like:

• con-TYE-ne

And the whole sentence would sound roughly like:

• les-cape room con-TYE-ne oo-nen-EEG-ma

That is only an approximation for an English speaker, but it helps as a starting point.