Breakdown of Se il sarto vuole il modello, tu glielo faresti vedere?
tu
you (singular)
vedere
to see
fare
to do / to make
volere
to want
se
if
glielo
it to him/her
il sarto
tailor
il modello
design
Questions & Answers about Se il sarto vuole il modello, tu glielo faresti vedere?
Why do we use faresti instead of a regular conditional form?
Faresti is the "you" (tu) present conditional form of the irregular verb fare (to do/make). Instead of just dropping the final "e" from the infinitive like regular verbs do, fare uses the special stem far- for its conditional forms, to which we add the standard ending -esti.
Why does the Italian sentence say faresti vedere instead of using a single verb for "show"?
What exactly is the word glielo doing here?
Glielo is a combined double pronoun that means "it to him". It combines the indirect object pronoun gli (to him) and the direct object pronoun lo (it, standing in for il modello). When gli combines with lo, they merge into a single word with an extra "e" connecting them.
The first half uses the present tense (vuole), but the second half uses the conditional (faresti). Is this normal?
Yes! The first part sets up a real, present situation: "If the tailor wants the design" (Se il sarto vuole...). The second part switches to the conditional to politely ask what you would do in that situation: "would you show it to him?" (...tu glielo faresti vedere). You don't have to match tenses across the whole sentence if the logic calls for different ones.
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