A ottobre il giardino cambia colore molto in fretta.

the garden

Breakdown of A ottobre il giardino cambia colore molto in fretta.

• il colore: the color
• molto: very
• in fretta: quickly

Questions & Answers about A ottobre il giardino cambia colore molto in fretta.

Why does Italian use a ottobre instead of something like in ottobre?

With months, Italian commonly uses a to mean in/during: a ottobre, a maggio, a gennaio.

So a ottobre means in October.

You may also sometimes see in ottobre, and it is understandable, but a ottobre is very natural and common when talking about months in a general time sense.

Examples:

• A dicembre fa freddo. = In December it’s cold.
• A luglio andiamo al mare. = In July we go to the seaside.

Why is ottobre not capitalized?

In Italian, the names of months and days of the week are normally not capitalized, unless they begin a sentence.

So:

• ottobre
• lunedì
• gennaio

This is different from English, where October must be capitalized.

Why does it say il giardino instead of just giardino?

Italian uses the definite article much more often than English does.

Here, il giardino means the garden. In Italian, it is very normal to include the article even where English might sometimes sound more flexible.

So:

• il giardino = the garden
• la casa = the house
• il sole = the sun

You usually cannot drop the article here and say just giardino.