Breakdown of L'ascensore va al secondo piano.
andare
to go / to be fine / to work out
al
to the / at the
l'ascensore
elevator
secondo
second
Questions & Answers about L'ascensore va al secondo piano.
Why does secondo come before piano? I thought Italian adjectives usually come after the noun.
You are right that descriptive adjectives usually go after the noun. However, ordinal numbers like secondo are an exception. They almost always come before the noun, exactly as they do in English.
Will secondo always end in -o?
Not always! Ordinal numbers must match the gender and number of the noun they describe. Because piano is masculine and singular, we use secondo. If the noun were feminine, like porta (door), you would say la seconda porta.
Why is the word al used here instead of just a?
In Italian, when the preposition a (to) is followed by the definite article il (the), they combine to form the single word al. This is required when saying you are going to a specific masculine place like a floor.
L'ascensore starts with L', so how can I tell if it is masculine or feminine?
The word ascensore is a masculine noun. The definite article L' is used for both masculine and feminine singular words that start with a vowel, so it does not give away the gender. A helpful trick is to learn the word with its indefinite article instead: un ascensore is masculine, whereas un' with an apostrophe would be feminine.