Questions & Answers about Questa nota è stonata.
Why is it questa and not questo?
Why is nota feminine?
What exactly is è here?
Because adjectives in Italian usually agree with the noun they describe in gender and number.
Since nota is feminine singular, the adjective also has to be feminine singular:
Examples:
Literally, stonata means out of tune or off-key.
It comes from stonato / stonata, which is often used for music, singing, or sounds that are not in tune.
For example:
It can sometimes also be used more figuratively for something that feels out of place, but in this sentence the musical meaning is the natural one.
Because questa already works as a determiner, like this in English.
You normally do not say:
You say:
This is parallel to English:
Yes, but it means something slightly different in structure.
The first sentence directly talks about the note and describes it. The second first says this is..., then identifies it as an out-of-tune note.
Both are correct, but they are not structured in exactly the same way.
The normal, neutral order is:
Questa nota è stonata.
Italian can sometimes change word order for emphasis, but that is less basic and may sound marked depending on context.
For a learner, the safest standard order is:
So here:
Not always. Nota can mean different things depending on context, including:
But in Questa nota è stonata, the presence of stonata makes the musical meaning very clear, because stonata naturally goes with sounds, singing, and music.
No. The basic adjective is the same word, but its ending changes to agree with the noun.
You can think of the dictionary form as stonato. Then it changes:
So stonata is not a completely different word; it is the feminine singular form of the adjective.