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Il direttore pubblica una notizia affidabile di cui parliamo spesso.

Il direttore pubblica una notizia affidabile di cui parliamo spesso.
The director publishes a reliable piece of news we often talk about.
From Lesson 127:Relative pronouns with prepositions (cui)·Italian

Questions & Answers about Il direttore pubblica una notizia affidabile di cui parliamo spesso.

Why do we use di cui here instead of just che?
Cui is a relative pronoun (meaning "which" or "whom") used when there is a preposition involved. The verb here is parlare di (to talk about). Since Italian doesn't allow prepositions to sit alone at the end of a sentence, the di moves in front of cui to literally mean "about which".
The English translation ends with "about". Where is "about" in the Italian sentence?
It is the word di inside di cui. Unlike English, which often leaves prepositions hanging at the end of a clause ("talk about"), Italian requires the preposition to go right before the relative pronoun. So, the Italian phrasing is strictly "about which we talk" (di cui parliamo).
The translation says "a piece of news", but the Italian is just una notizia. Is that right?
Yes! In English, "news" is an uncountable noun, so you have to say "a piece of news" to single out one item. In Italian, notizia is a normal, countable noun. Una notizia is a single news item, and le notizie means the news in general.
Why does affidabile end in -e if it is describing the feminine word notizia?
Adjectives that end in -e in their dictionary form (like affidabile, meaning reliable) do not change for gender. They use the same -e ending for both masculine and feminine singular nouns. If the noun were plural, the ending would change to -i (for example, notizie affidabili).
Why does spesso come after the verb here?
In Italian, adverbs of frequency like spesso (often) generally go immediately after the verb they modify (parliamo spesso). This is different from English, where we usually put "often" before the verb ("we often talk").

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