Question 1

Why are there two words (che cosa) to ask "what"?

Accepted Answer

Che cosa literally translates to "what thing" and is the traditional, complete way to say "what" in a question. In everyday spoken Italian, it is very common to shorten this and just ask cosa or che. All three options are correct and mean the exact same thing!

Question 2

I don't see the word for "you all" in this sentence. How do we know who is visiting?

Accepted Answer

In Italian, the verb ending usually tells you who is doing the action, so subject pronouns are often left out. The verb visitate ends in -ate, which is the voi (you all / plural you) form of the regular verb visitare (to visit).

Question 3

How come there isn't a word for "are" to make "are visiting"?

Accepted Answer

In English, we often use "are visiting" to talk about actions happening right now. Italian usually just uses the standard present tense for this. Therefore, the single word visitate translates to both "you all visit" and "you all are visiting" depending on the context.

Question 4

Why is it questa instead of questo?

Accepted Answer

Words like "this" have to match the gender of the noun they describe. Città (city) is a feminine noun, so we must use the feminine singular form, questa, rather than the masculine questo.

Question 5

Why does the word città have an accent mark on the last letter?

Accepted Answer

The accent mark tells you to put the stress of your voice on that final syllable (pronounced chit-TAH). Also, as a handy rule for the future: Italian nouns that end in an accented vowel like città do not change their endings when they become plural.

Che cosa visitate in questa città?

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