Learn Italian: La riunione inizia tra un'ora. - The meeting starts in an hour.

La riunione inizia tra un'ora.

The meeting starts in an hour.

Breakdown of La riunione inizia tra un'ora.

Questions & Answers about La riunione inizia tra un'ora.

Why is tra used here instead of in for "in an hour"?

In Italian, when you want to say that something will happen a certain amount of time from now (a future point), you must use tra or fra. If you used in, it would instead describe how much time it takes to complete a task, rather than when it will begin.

Could I use fra instead of tra in this sentence?

Absolutely. The prepositions tra and fra mean the exact same thing. Italians just choose whichever one sounds better in a sentence to avoid repeating the same sounds. Here, fra un'ora and tra un'ora are both perfectly fine.

Why does un'ora have an apostrophe?

The word ora (hour) is feminine, so it takes the feminine article una. Because ora starts with a vowel, una drops its final letter and replaces it with an apostrophe to make the two words flow together smoothly.

Is it okay that inizia is in the present tense even though the meeting is in the future?

Yes! Just like in English (where we say "the meeting starts" instead of "will start"), Italians often use the present tense for scheduled events in the near future. You could also use the future tense and say inizierà, but the present tense is very common and natural here.