L'alieno osserva la Terra.

to observe

Breakdown of L'alieno osserva la Terra.

• la Terra: the Earth
• l'alieno: the alien

Questions & Answers about L'alieno osserva la Terra.

Why is it L'alieno and not il alieno?

Because Italian usually shortens lo or la to l' before a vowel.

• alieno begins with a vowel sound, so the article becomes l'
• So you say l'alieno
• il alieno is not correct Italian

In full article patterns, you can think of it like this:

• il ragazzo
• lo studente
• l'amico
• l'alieno

Here, alieno is a masculine singular noun, and before the vowel it takes l'.

Is alieno masculine or feminine?

In this sentence, alieno is masculine singular.

You can tell from the article:

• l'alieno = the alien (masculine)
• l'aliena = the alien (feminine), if referring to a female alien

So the sentence specifically uses the masculine form.

Why is there an apostrophe in L'alieno?

The apostrophe shows elision, which means a vowel has been dropped to make pronunciation smoother.

Instead of saying:

• lo alieno or la aliena

Italian shortens this to:

• l'alieno
• l'aliena

This is very common in Italian before vowels.

Why is it ?