Breakdown of Le tue ciabatte blu sono più calde delle mie.
essere
to be
più
more
caldo
warm
la tua
your
blu
blue
la ciabatta
the slipper
delle
of the
mie
mine
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Questions & Answers about Le tue ciabatte blu sono più calde delle mie.
Why does the sentence start with Le tue rather than just tue?
In Italian, possessive adjectives (mio, tuo, suo, ecc.) are normally preceded by the definite article. Since ciabatte is feminine plural, you pair le + tue, giving le tue. For a masculine plural noun you’d say i tuoi, and for singular feminine la tua, singular masculine il tuo.
Why is blu the same in singular and plural instead of something like blui?
Blu is an invariable color adjective in Italian (borrowed from French/English). It never changes for gender or number, so it stays blu in la ciabatta blu and le ciabatte blu.
Why does blu follow ciabatte instead of coming before it like in English?
Most adjectives in Italian—especially colors—come after the noun they modify. So you say ciabatte blu rather than blu ciabatte.
Why is it calde instead of caldi or calda?
The adjective caldo must agree in gender and number with ciabatte, which is feminine plural. Hence caldo → calde.
How do you form “more … than” in Italian, as in “more warm than”?
Use più before the adjective and di (or its contractions) before what you’re comparing. Here: più calde + delle mie = “more warm than mine.”
Why is it delle mie and not simply di mie?
When di meets the feminine plural article le, they contract to delle. So di + le mie ciabatte becomes delle mie (ciabatte).
Why is the noun ciabatte omitted after mie in the second part?
That’s ellipsis. Once you’ve named ciabatte the first time, you can drop the second occurrence. You still need delle mie to complete the comparison, but ciabatte is understood.
Could you say Le tue ciabatte blu sono più calde che le mie instead of delle mie?
Standard Italian comparatives of adjectives use di/delle + noun or pronoun. Using che in this context sounds nonstandard or colloquial. So stick with più calde delle mie.