Questions & Answers about L'aeroporto non è chiuso oggi.
Why do we use l' for "the" instead of il?
Aeroporto is a masculine noun that starts with a vowel. Normally, special masculine nouns (and those starting with vowels) take the articlelo. However, to make pronunciation smoother, Italian drops the o and adds an apostrophe. So, lo aeroporto becomes l'aeroporto.
Why does non come before the verb è?
In Italian, the negative word non is always placed directly before the verb it is negating. While in English we say "is not" (verb + not), Italian does the opposite and says non è (not + is).
Does the ending of chiuso change depending on what is closed?
Yes! Chiuso acts as an adjective here, so its ending must match the gender and number of the noun it describes. Because aeroporto is a masculine singular noun, the adjective ends in -o. If a feminine noun were closed, like a door (la porta), it would change to chiusa.
How do I pronounce the beginning of aeroporto?
Unlike the English word "airport", Italian keeps the full prefixaero-. You must pronounce the first two vowels clearly and separately as "ah-eh". The rhythm of the whole word is ah-eh-roh-POR-toh.