Learn Italian: A Marco piacciono i fumetti, ma preferisce i film. - Marco likes comic books, but he prefers movies.

A Marco piacciono i fumetti, ma preferisce i film.

Marco likes comic books, but he prefers movies.

Breakdown of A Marco piacciono i fumetti, ma preferisce i film.

Questions & Answers about A Marco piacciono i fumetti, ma preferisce i film.

Why is there an A before Marco?

In Italian, the verb piacere works differently than "to like" in English. It actually means "to be pleasing to". So instead of saying "Marco likes comic books", you literally say "Comic books are pleasing to Marco". That "to" is the A at the beginning of the sentence.

Why is it piacciono instead of piace?

Because Marco likes i fumetti (the comic books), which is plural. Since piacere means "to be pleasing to", the comic books are the actual subject of the verb. Piacciono means "they are pleasing". If he liked a singular thing, like a book (il libro), you would use the singular piace.

Why does preferisce work like a normal verb instead of using the A Marco structure?

Great observation! While piacere requires you to say "pleasing to Marco", the verb preferire (to prefer) works exactly like English. The person who prefers is the subject. The ending -isce already means "he prefers", so we don't need to say "to Marco" again, nor do we need the word for "he" (lui).

Why do we need the word i before fumetti and film if we just say "comic books" and "movies" in English?