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L'ammiratore nasconde la sorpresa, ma oggi gliela svela.

L'ammiratore nasconde la sorpresa, ma oggi gliela svela.
The admirer hides the surprise, but today he reveals it to her.
From Lesson 130:Third-person combined pronouns (glielo, gliela)·Italian

Questions & Answers about L'ammiratore nasconde la sorpresa, ma oggi gliela svela.

What exactly does gliela mean in this sentence, and how is it formed?
gliela is a combined double pronoun meaning 'it to her'. It fuses the indirect object 'to her' and the direct object 'it' (referring to the feminine noun la sorpresa). When the indirect pronoun le (to her) or gli (to him) combines with la, they both turn into the special prefix glie- and attach to the direct pronoun, forming the single word gliela.
Wait, if gli usually means 'to him', why does gliela mean 'it to her' here?
That is the tricky part about combined pronouns! In Italian, both gli (to him) and le (to her) change into the exact same prefix, glie-, when they join with a direct object pronoun like lo or la. Therefore, gliela can translate to 'it to him' or 'it to her'. You have to rely on context to know who is receiving the surprise.
Why does gliela come before the verb svela?
In English, we place pronouns after the verb ('reveals it to her'). However, in Italian, these short object pronouns almost always go immediately before the conjugated verb. You can think of the word order as 'today to-her-it he-reveals'.
The verb svela means 'reveals'. Is there a trick to remembering this word?
Yes! It comes from the noun velo, which means 'veil'. In Italian, attaching an s- to the beginning of a word often creates the opposite meaning, very similar to 'un-' in English. So svelare literally means 'to unveil'.

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