Breakdown of Il muratore lavora in cantiere.
in
in
lavorare
to work
il cantiere
the construction site
il muratore
the mason
Questions & Answers about Il muratore lavora in cantiere.
Why is there a definite article il before muratore?
In Italian you normally use the definite article with a singular noun denoting a profession when you’re talking about a specific person or the profession in general. Here il muratore means “the builder” (a particular builder or builders as a category). You cannot say just muratore in a sentence like this.
How do you conjugate lavorare to get lavora?
Lavorare is a regular -are verb. In the present indicative the endings are:
io lavoro
tu lavori
lui/lei lavora
noi lavoriamo
voi lavorate
loro lavorano
So lavora is the third-person singular (“he/she/it works”).
What does cantiere mean, and why is there no article before it?
Cantiere means “construction site.” The phrase in cantiere is an idiomatic expression meaning “on (the) site,” and here Italian drops the article as part of a fixed locution (similar to a scuola, in ospedale). If you want to specify a particular site, you could say nel cantiere (in the construction site), but the general “on‐site” sense uses in cantiere.
What’s the difference between in cantiere and al cantiere?