Breakdown of Va' al fiume con la torcia se hai sete.
con
with
andare
to go / to be fine / to work out
al
to the / at the
se
if
Questions & Answers about Va' al fiume con la torcia se hai sete.
Why does Va' have an apostrophe at the end?
Va' is the informal imperative (command) form of andare (to go) for tu (you). The full form is vai, but Italians often drop the final letter and replace it with an apostrophe. You will see this trick with other irregular command forms too, like fa' (from fare) or di' (from dire).
Why is it al fiume instead of just a fiume?
In Italian, you usually need to combine the preposition a (to) with the definite article (the) when talking about going to specific places. Because fiume (river) is masculine, it takes the article il. When you combine a + il, it creates the combined preposition al.
Fiume ends in -e, so how do I know its gender?
Why does it say hai sete (you have thirst) instead of using the verb 'to be'?