Breakdown of Il pianoforte di cui ti parlavo è stato accordato ieri.
io
I
di
of
parlare
to talk
il pianoforte
the piano
ieri
yesterday
ti
you
accordare
to tune
cui
which
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Questions & Answers about Il pianoforte di cui ti parlavo è stato accordato ieri.
What’s the role of di cui in this sentence, and why can’t we use che instead?
di cui combines the preposition di with the relative pronoun cui, so it literally means “of/about which.” You need it whenever the verb in the relative clause (here parlare) requires di (parlare di qualcuno/qualcosa). You cannot use che after a preposition, so che ti parlavo would be ungrammatical.
How is the passive è stato accordato formed, and why is the passive used here?
The passive voice in Italian is built with the auxiliary verb essere plus the past participle (accordato, from accordare). So è stato accordato = essere (è stato) + accordato. We use the passive when we want to focus on what happened to the piano (it was tuned) rather than who tuned it.
Could I instead say “Il tecnico ha accordato il pianoforte ieri”? How does that compare?
Yes. Il tecnico ha accordato il pianoforte ieri is the active voice: soggetto + avere + participio. It tells you who tuned the piano. In the original, we omit the agent and highlight the piano itself, so we turn it into a passive.
Why is ti placed before parlavo, and what does it represent?
ti is the second-person singular indirect-object pronoun (“to you”). In Italian, clitic pronouns (mi, ti, ci, vi, etc.) must appear before the conjugated verb: ti parlavo = “I was talking to you.”
Does cui ever change form for gender or number?
No. cui is invariable. It always stays cui, regardless of whether its antecedent is masculine/feminine or singular/plural.
Why is ieri placed at the end of the sentence? Could it go elsewhere?
Time adverbs like ieri are quite flexible in Italian. You can say:
- Ieri è stato accordato il pianoforte (at the start)
- Il pianoforte è stato accordato ieri (at the end, most neutral)
Moving ieri between è stato and accordato is possible but less common: È stato ieri accordato il pianoforte sounds more formal or poetic.
Why do we use the definite article il before pianoforte instead of an indefinite one?
Because we refer to a specific piano you and the speaker already know (“the piano I was telling you about”). Definite articles (il, la, i, le) mark that shared context; un pianoforte would introduce an unspecified piano.