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L'uomo vende la macchina vecchia.

L'uomo vende la macchina vecchia.
The man sells the old car.
From Lesson 32:Present tense of -ere verbs (-o, -i, -e)·Italian

Breakdown of L'uomo vende la macchina vecchia.

l'uomo
the man (m)
la macchina
the car
vecchio
old
vendere
to sell

Questions & Answers about L'uomo vende la macchina vecchia.

Why does the verb vendere end in -e here?
Vendere (to sell) is a regular -ere verb. Because the subject is l'uomo (the man, which is a third-person singular "he"), we drop the -ere ending and add -e to get vende.
Why is the order macchina vecchia instead of vecchia macchina?
In Italian, descriptive adjectives like vecchia (old) almost always come right after the noun they describe, unlike in English. So literally, the sentence says "the car old".
Why does vecchia end in -a?
Adjectives must match the gender and number of the noun they describe. Because macchina is a feminine singular noun, the standard dictionary form of the adjective (vecchio) changes its ending to -a to become vecchia.
Why does the sentence use L'uomo instead of Il uomo?
Uomo is a masculine noun that starts with a vowel. For masculine singular words starting with a vowel, the definite article (the word for "the") drops its vowel and becomes l' instead of il or lo to make it smoother to say.

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