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Da' la corda a Marco, sta per cadere dal ramo!

Da' la corda a Marco, sta per cadere dal ramo!
Give the rope to Marco, he is about to fall from the branch!
From Lesson 122:Irregular informal commands (sii, fa', sta')·Italian

Questions & Answers about Da' la corda a Marco, sta per cadere dal ramo!

Why does Da' have an apostrophe at the end?
Da' is the irregular informal command for dare (to give) when speaking to a single person (tu). It is a shortened version of dai. The apostrophe shows that the final letter has been dropped. You will also see this same pattern with other short irregular verbs in this lesson, like fa' for fare and va' for andare.
Is there a difference between Da' with an apostrophe and dà with an accent?
Yes, they are completely different forms of the verb! Da' with an apostrophe is the imperative (command) form meaning "Give!". On the other hand, dà with an accent is the normal present tense for "he/she/it gives". The punctuation helps you tell the difference in writing.
How does sta per cadere translate to "he is about to fall"?
To express that an action is "about to" happen in Italian, you use the verb stare conjugated for the subject, followed by the word per, and then the infinitive form of the action verb. Here, sta refers to Marco, and cadere is the infinitive "to fall".
Why do we use dal ramo instead of del ramo?
Dal is a combination of the preposition da (from) and the masculine article il (the). Because Marco is falling "from" a starting point (the branch), we must use da. If we used del (di + il), it would mean "of the branch", which does not make sense for the physical movement of falling.

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