Nascondo le chiavi nel cassetto.

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Breakdown of Nascondo le chiavi nel cassetto.

• in: in
• la chiave: the key
• il cassetto: the drawer

Questions & Answers about Nascondo le chiavi nel cassetto.

Why does the verb appear as nascondo?

It’s the first-person singular present tense of the verb nascondere (“to hide”). In Italian, io nascondo means “I hide.” The -o ending marks “I” in regular -ere verbs.

Why is there an article le before chiavi?

Chiavi (“keys”) is a feminine plural noun. In Italian, when you talk about specific items, you normally use the definite article. Feminine plural takes le, so le chiavi means “the keys.”

Could you omit le and just say nascondo chiavi?

No—dropping the article here would sound unnatural or imply you’re speaking about keys in general, not specific ones. Italians almost always use the article with plural countable nouns when they’re definite.

What is nel in nel cassetto?

Nel is a contraction of the preposition in (“in”) + the masculine singular article il (“the”). So nel cassetto literally means “in the drawer.”

Why use in here and not another preposition?