Le zucchine vengono tagliate dallo chef prima di essere cotte al forno.

The zucchinis are cut by the chef before being baked in the oven.

Breakdown of Le zucchine vengono tagliate dallo chef prima di essere cotte al forno.

• essere: to be
• prima di: before
• tagliare: to cut
• da: by
• la zucchina: the zucchini
• lo chef: the chef
• cotto al forno: baked

Questions & Answers about Le zucchine vengono tagliate dallo chef prima di essere cotte al forno.

What tense and voice is vengono tagliate, and how is it formed?

vengono is the third-person plural present of venire, combined with the past participle tagliate. This makes a passive construction equivalent to “are cut” in English. The pattern is:

• venire (conjugated) + past participle (agrees with the subject)

Why does tagliate end with -ate instead of -ato?

In Italian the past participle agrees in gender and number with the subject. Here the subject is le zucchine (feminine plural), so the participle is tagliate (feminine plural form of tagliato).

Why is it dallo chef and not dal chef?

dallo is the contraction of da (by) + lo (the). We use lo because chef is a masculine singular noun that, by Italian article‐use rules for certain consonant clusters or foreign words, takes lo rather than il. So:

• da
  • lo = dallo

Why do we say prima di essere cotte instead of prima che vengano cotte?

After a preposition (here di) Italian requires the infinitive. Hence:

• prima di
  • essere (infinitive) + participle (cotte)
    If you choose prima che, you must use the subjunctive:
• prima che vengano cotte

What does al forno mean in this context?

Literally al forno means “to/at the oven,” but in cooking it’s idiomatic for “baked” or “oven-roasted.” So cotte al forno = “baked in the oven.”

What’s the difference between vengono tagliate and si tagliano?

Both express a non-specific subject action, but:

• vengono tagliate is a true passive; you can specify the agent (e.g. dallo chef).
• si tagliano is the impersonal “si” construction (like “one cuts” or “zucchinis get cut”). It does not normally mention who does it.

Can I rephrase prima di essere cotte al forno as prima di cuocerle al forno?

Yes. cuocerle = cuocere + object pronoun le. So you get:

• original: prima di essere cotte al forno (“before being baked in the oven”)
• alternative: prima di cuocerle al forno (“before baking them in the oven”)

Both are correct; the second is simply more direct and drops the passive subordinate clause.