Breakdown of La matita rossa torna sempre nel mio astuccio verde.
Questions & Answers about La matita rossa torna sempre nel mio astuccio verde.
Italian adjectives agree in gender (masculine/feminine) and number (singular/plural) with the noun:
• Matita is feminine singular, so rosso becomes rossa.
• Astuccio is masculine singular. Verde is one of those adjectives whose singular form is identical for both genders. In the plural you’d say rosse (fem.) or verdi (masc./fem.).
Nel is the contraction of in + il (in + the). Italians routinely contract prepositions with definite articles:
• in + il = nel
• su + il = sul, da + la = dalla, etc.
Both verbs mean “to return” or “to come back.”
• Tornare is the everyday, neutral form.
• Ritornare is slightly more emphatic or formal.
In this sentence you could say La matita ritorn a sempre…, but torna sounds more natural in casual speech.
Adverbs like sempre (always) usually go immediately after the verb or before it:
• La matita torna sempre…
You could also say La matita sempre torna…, but moving sempre to the very end (torna nel mio astuccio sempre) is grammatically possible yet stylistically odd in Italian.