Learn Hardcore Italian: La zia serve acqua fresca sotto l’albero. - The aunt serves fresh water under the tree.

In this sentence, serve means “serves” (i.e. offers or hands out). Servire can indeed be used impersonally to mean “to need” (e.g. “Mi serve un ombrello” = “I need an umbrella”), but here there is a clear subject (la zia) performing an action on a direct object (acqua fresca), so it must be the transitive “to serve.”

What tense and conjugation is serve, and why isn’t it serva or servi?

Serve is the present indicative, third person singular of the second‐conjugation verb servire. The full paradigm is:
• io servo
• tu servi
• lui/lei serve
• noi serviamo
• voi servite
• loro servono
You’ll notice the 3rd person singular always takes -e (not -a or -i).

Why is there no article before acqua? Could I say la zia serve l’acqua fresca or serve dell’acqua fresca?

• Omitting the article before acqua treats it as an indefinite, uncountable substance: “(some) fresh water.”
• You can use the partitive dell’acqua fresca (“some fresh water”) when you want to emphasize “some.”
• Using l’acqua fresca makes it definite (“the fresh water”), as if you and the speaker already know exactly which water you’re talking about.

Why is fresca placed after acqua, not before?

In Italian, most descriptive (qualitative) adjectives follow the noun to add information. Placing fresca after acqua is the normal order for “fresh water.” Some inherent or subjective adjectives (like buono, bello) can precede, but fresca is purely descriptive here.

What is l’ in l’albero, and why does sotto not contract with the article?

• l’ is the elided form of il before a vowel (il + albero → l’albero).
• Only the prepositions a, da, di, in, su combine (and contract) with the definite articles. Sotto is not one of those, so you always say sotto il / l’ / lo / la, etc., without fusing them (sotto + l’albero remains sotto l’albero).

What role does sotto l’albero play in the sentence?

It’s a prepositional phrase functioning as an adverbial of place, answering “where?” – “under the tree.” It modifies the verb serve, telling us the location of the serving.

Why is zia preceded by the article la? In English we’d say “Aunt serves….”

In Italian, kinship terms often take the definite article when speaking of a specific relative:
• La zia = “(my/the) aunt.”
If you add a possessive you can say mia zia (no article) or la mia zia (with article); both are correct but emphasize slightly different nuances.

How do you pronounce La zia serve acqua fresca sotto l’albero? Where are the stresses?

Approximate phonetic stress:
• ZIA: ˈtsi-a (stress on ZI-)
• SER-ve: ˈser-ve (stress on SER-)
• ÀC-qua: ˈak-kwa (stress on ÀC-)
• FRÈ-sca: ˈfre-ska (stress on FRÈ-)
• al-BÈ-ro: al-ˈbe-ro (stress on BÈ-).
Italian stress is regular: most words are stressed on the penultimate or antepenultimate syllable.