Breakdown of Il sarto avrebbe bisogno del velluto per la gonna.
di
of, from
per
for / in order to / because of
il sarto
tailor
la gonna
skirt
il velluto
velvet
avere bisogno di
to need
Questions & Answers about Il sarto avrebbe bisogno del velluto per la gonna.
Why does "would need" translate to two words, "avrebbe bisogno"?
In Italian, the most common way to express "to need" is the phrase avere bisogno di (literally, "to have need of"). To say "would need", you just change the verb avere into the present conditional tense. Since the subject is il sarto (he), we use the "he/she" conditional form: avrebbe.
How do you form the conditional of "avere"? Where does the "avr-" come from?
Avere (to have) is an irregular verb in the conditional. Instead of just dropping the final -e from the infinitive, it also drops a middle vowel, changing the stem to avr-. Then, you add the standard conditional ending -ebbe for the "he/she/it" form. (Tip: This is the exact same irregular stem used in the future tense, like avrà for "he will have"!)
Is "bisogno" a conjugated verb here?
Why is it "del velluto" instead of just "di velluto"?
The phrase avere bisogno di requires the preposition di. However, in Italian, you usually need to include a definite article (like il, la, etc.) before nouns, even for general materials like velvet. The preposition di merges with the masculine singular article il (for il velluto) to create the combined word del.
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