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Sì, l'amico è intelligente.

Sì, l'amico è intelligente.
Yes, the friend is intelligent.
From Lesson 5:Yes/No questions·Italian

Breakdown of Sì, l'amico è intelligente.

essere
to be
l'amico
the friend (m)
intelligente
intelligent
sì
yes

Questions & Answers about Sì, l'amico è intelligente.

Why do Sì and è have accent marks?
In Italian, accents are often used to tell two identical-looking words apart. Sì with an accent means "yes", while si without an accent is a pronoun meaning "oneself" or "each other". Similarly, è with an accent means "is", but e without an accent means "and".
Why is it l'amico instead of il amico?
The word for "the" changes before a vowel so the words flow together easily when speaking. For singular nouns starting with a vowel, like amico, you drop the vowel from the article and add an apostrophe, using l' instead of il or lo.
Since amico is a masculine noun, why doesn't intelligente end in -o?
While many adjectives end in -o for masculine and -a for feminine, a special group of adjectives naturally ends in -e in their dictionary form. Words like intelligente stay exactly the same for both masculine and feminine singular nouns. If it were a female friend (l'amica), she would still be intelligente.
How would I turn this into a question asking "Is the friend intelligent?"
You don't need to rearrange any words like we do in English! To ask a yes/no question in Italian, you just use the exact same word order as a statement and raise your pitch at the end: L'amico è intelligente? The sentence you see here is the direct answer to that question.

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