Learn Italian: Perché il nuovo collega lavora male? - Why does the new colleague work badly?

Perché il nuovo collega lavora male?

Why does the new colleague work badly?

Breakdown of Perché il nuovo collega lavora male?

Questions & Answers about Perché il nuovo collega lavora male?

Does perché only mean 'why'?

In this sentence, perché means 'why', but it can also mean 'because' in Italian! You use the exact same word to ask the question and to answer it. Also, note the accent on the final é which tells you to stress that last syllable.

Wait, collega ends in '-a'. Why is it il nuovo and not la nuova?

Good catch! The word collega (colleague) is a special noun that can be both masculine and feminine depending on who you are talking about. Since we are talking about a male colleague here, we use the masculine article il and the masculine adjective nuovo. If it were a female colleague, it would be la nuova collega.

Why isn't there a word for 'does' in the Italian sentence?

Italian doesn't use helper verbs like 'do' or 'does' to make questions. You simply take the normal statement word order—il nuovo collega lavora male—and put the question word perché at the beginning!

Why is the word male used here instead of cattivo?

male means 'badly' (it is an adverb), so it describes how the action lavora (works) is done. cattivo means 'bad' (an adjective), which is used to describe nouns like things or people, not actions.