Word
Noi siamo in città, ma non ci sono negozi aperti.
Meaning
We are in the city, but there are no open shops.
Part of speech
sentence
Pronunciation
Course
Breakdown of Noi siamo in città, ma non ci sono negozi aperti.
essere
to be
ma
but
non
not
il negozio
the shop
Questions & Answers about Noi siamo in città, ma non ci sono negozi aperti.
Why do we use ci sono instead of c'è in this sentence?
How do you say "there are no" or "there aren't any"?
Why do both negozi and aperti end in -i?
In Italian, adjectives must match the noun they describe. Negozio (shop) is masculine, so its plural is negozi. The adjective aperto (open) changes to its masculine plural form aperti to match. Also, notice that the descriptive adjective comes after the noun: negozi aperti (open shops).
Why is it in città instead of nella città (in the city)?
When talking about being in a city or going to town, Italian often uses just the basic preposition in without adding the word for "the". It acts like a set phrase, similar to how in English we say "in town" instead of "in the town".