Voglio piantare un albero in giardino.

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Breakdown of Voglio piantare un albero in giardino.

• volere: to want
• in: in
• il giardino: the garden

Questions & Answers about Voglio piantare un albero in giardino.

What does voglio mean and why is it used here?

Voglio is the first-person singular present indicative of volere, which means “to want.” So voglio translates as “I want.” In Italian, the subject pronoun io (“I”) is usually omitted because the verb ending -o already tells you the subject is “I.”

Why is piantare in the infinitive form?

After verbs of desire like voglio, Italian uses the infinitive of the following verb. So piantare is the infinitive “to plant,” pairing with voglio to mean “I want to plant.”

Why don’t we say uno albero instead of un albero?

Un is the indefinite article used before masculine nouns starting with most consonants or vowels. Albero begins with a vowel, so you still use un, not uno. Uno is reserved for masculine nouns beginning with “s+consonant,” “z,” “ps,” “gn,” etc.

Why is it in giardino rather than nel giardino?

When indicating location in a general sense, Italian often uses the preposition in without an article: in giardino means “in (the) garden” as a concept or one’s own garden. Nel giardino (in + il giardino) would stress a specific garden already mentioned or known to both speaker and listener.