Learn Italian: Lui fa la spesa oggi. - He does the shopping today.

Fa comes from the verb fare (to do / to make). Fare is a highly irregular verb, which means it doesn't follow the normal -are ending rules you might have learned. For "he" or "she" (third-person singular), the correct form is simply fa.

Does fare la spesa mean shopping for clothes or groceries?

In Italian, fare la spesa specifically means doing the grocery shopping or buying everyday household essentials. If you are going out to buy clothes or gifts for fun, Italians actually borrow the English word and say fare shopping.

Could I just say Fa la spesa oggi without Lui?

Yes! In Italian, the subject pronoun (lui, meaning "he") is often dropped because the verb form already gives us a clue about who is acting. Including lui here just puts a little more emphasis on the fact that he is the one doing the shopping today, rather than someone else.

Why is there a la before spesa?

Italian uses definite articles (like la, meaning "the") much more often than English. The set phrase for grocery shopping is fare la spesa, which literally translates to "to do the spending" or "to do the shopping."