Learn Italian: Gli mostro la città. - I am showing him the city.

Gli mostro la città.

I am showing him the city.

Breakdown of Gli mostro la città.

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Questions & Answers about Gli mostro la città.

Wait, isn't gli the plural word for "the" like in gli zii?

It can be! But here, gli is an indirect object pronoun meaning "to him". You can tell it is acting as a pronoun because it comes right before a verb (mostro) instead of a noun.

Why is gli at the beginning of the sentence instead of after the verb?

In Italian, these short pronouns almost always go immediately before the conjugated verb. So instead of saying "I show to him", Italian essentially says "To him I show" (Gli mostro).

Could gli mostro also mean "I show them"?

Yes! While the traditional word for "to them" is loro (which goes after the verb), in everyday Italian it is very common to use gli before the verb to mean "to them" as well. Context will tell you if it means "to him" or "to them".

How do we know it means "I am showing" if there is no word for "I"?

The verb ending tells us who is doing the action. Mostro comes from the verb mostrare (to show). The -o ending means "I". You could say Io gli mostro, but leaving out the io is perfectly normal and usually preferred.