Non sporcare il pavimento con il fango.

with

Breakdown of Non sporcare il pavimento con il fango.

• non: not
• il pavimento: the floor
• il fango: the mud

Questions & Answers about Non sporcare il pavimento con il fango.

Why does the sentence start with Non?

Because Non is the normal way to make a sentence negative in Italian.

• Sporcare il pavimento. = To dirty the floor.
• Non sporcare il pavimento. = Don’t dirty the floor.

In commands, non goes before the verb.

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Why is the verb sporcare and not sporca?

This is one of the most important points in the sentence.

With an informal singular negative command (when speaking to tu), Italian usually uses:

• non + infinitive

So:

• Sporca il pavimento. = Dirty the floor. / Make the floor dirty.
• Non sporcare il pavimento. = Don’t dirty the floor.

So even though the person being addressed is tu, the negative command uses the infinitive sporcare, not the imperative form sporca.

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Who is being addressed here?

This sentence is addressing one person informally: tu.

Italian does not need to state the subject pronoun, so tu is understood.

So the full idea is:

• (Tu) non sporcare il pavimento con il fango.

That means Don’t dirty the floor with mud when speaking to one person you would normally address as tu.

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