Learn Italian: Il tempo è poco.

Il tempo è poco.

Time is short.

Breakdown of Il tempo è poco.

essere

to be

poco

little, few, not very

il tempo

the time, the weather

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Questions & Answers about Il tempo è poco.

Why does the Italian sentence use poco instead of the word for 'short'?

In Italian, you don't say time is 'short' (corto). Instead, you say there is 'little' of it or 'not much' of it. That is why poco is used here. Because it describes the masculine singular noun tempo, it acts as an adjective and ends in -o.

Why is there an Il at the beginning? English just says 'Time is short'.

In English, we often drop words like 'the' when talking about general concepts. In Italian, you almost always need a definite article (like il, la, i, or le) for general or abstract ideas. So, 'time' in a general sense becomes il tempo.

Doesn't tempo also mean 'weather'?

Yes, tempo can mean both 'time' and 'weather' (like in the phrase che tempo fa? which means 'what is the weather like?'). You just have to look at the context. Saying 'the weather is little' wouldn't make sense here, so it has to mean 'time'.

Would poco change its ending if we used a different noun?

Yes! When words of quantity like poco, tanto, and molto are used as adjectives to describe a noun, they must match that noun's gender and number. If you were talking about a feminine word like patience (la pazienza), you would say La pazienza è poca.