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C'è un bar tranquillo in questa strada.

C'è un bar tranquillo in questa strada.
There is a quiet bar in this street.
From Lesson 18:There is / there are (c'è, ci sono)·Italian

Questions & Answers about C'è un bar tranquillo in questa strada.

Why do we use c'è here, and what exactly does the apostrophe stand for?
C'è means "there is". It is a combination of ci (there) and è (is). Because è starts with a vowel, the i in ci is dropped and replaced with an apostrophe to make it flow better. We use c'è here because we are talking about a single thing: un bar. If we were talking about multiple bars, we would use ci sono (there are).
Why is the word order "un bar tranquillo" instead of "un tranquillo bar"?
In Italian, descriptive adjectives like tranquillo (quiet or peaceful) usually come directly after the noun they describe. So instead of saying "a quiet bar" like we do in English, you build the phrase as "a bar quiet".
Why is it "questa strada" and not "questo strada"?
Demonstrative adjectives (words for "this" or "that") must match the gender of the noun they describe. Strada (street) is a feminine singular noun, which you can often guess from its -a ending. Because it is feminine, we must use the feminine form questa rather than the masculine questo.
I noticed "bar" doesn't end in a typical Italian vowel. Is it a masculine or feminine word?
Foreign words borrowed into Italian, like bar, are almost always masculine. You can tell it is masculine singular here because it is paired with the masculine article un. As a bonus rule, borrowed words don't change their endings in the plural, so "two bars" would simply be due bar.

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