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È troppo buio e non possiamo vedere niente.

È troppo buio e non possiamo vedere niente.
It is too dark and we cannot see anything.
From Lesson 83:Indefinite pronouns (qualcosa, qualcuno)·Italian

Questions & Answers about È troppo buio e non possiamo vedere niente.

Doesn't non possiamo vedere niente literally mean "we cannot see nothing"? Is that a double negative?
Yes, it is! In English, double negatives are usually incorrect, but in Italian, they are absolutely required when niente (nothing/anything) comes after the verb. To say you can't see anything, you have to put non before the verb and niente after it.
Could I leave out the non and just say possiamo vedere niente?
No, that would be grammatically incorrect. If niente comes after the verb, the verb must be preceded by non. You only drop the non if niente is the subject at the beginning of the sentence (for example: Niente è facile - "Nothing is easy").
Where is the word for "it" in È troppo buio?
Italian drops subject pronouns very often. For impersonal statements like weather, time, or general conditions (like "it is late" or "it is dark"), you don't use a word for "it". You just start directly with the third-person singular verb: È (It is).
Why is vedere in its infinitive (dictionary) form instead of being conjugated for "we"?
Because it follows possiamo (we can), which is a modal or "helper" verb. In Italian, just like in English, when you combine a modal verb with another action ("we can see"), only the first verb is conjugated. The second verb stays in the infinitive (vedere).
Would troppo change its ending if it were describing something feminine or plural?
Not in this sentence! Here, troppo is acting as an adverb meaning "too" (modifying the adjective buio), and adverbs never change their endings. It would only change to troppa, troppi, or troppe if it meant "too much" or "too many" and was describing a noun (like troppe mele - "too many apples").

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