Learn Italian: Quando un pedone attraversa la strada, bisogna fermarsi. - When a pedestrian crosses the street, one must stop.

Quando un pedone attraversa la strada, bisogna fermarsi.

When a pedestrian crosses the street, one must stop.

Breakdown of Quando un pedone attraversa la strada, bisogna fermarsi.

Questions & Answers about Quando un pedone attraversa la strada, bisogna fermarsi.

Why is there no subject like I or we before bisogna?

Bisogna is an impersonal verb, meaning it doesn't take a specific person as a subject. It translates to one must or it is necessary. You just follow it directly with an infinitive verb like fermarsi to state a general rule.

Why do we use fermarsi instead of just fermare?

In Italian, fermare means to stop something else, like stopping a car or a thief. When you are stopping yourself or coming to a halt, you must use the reflexive form fermarsi.

Why does the infinitive fermarsi end in -si after bisogna?

Because bisogna applies to people in general, we leave the attached reflexive pronoun in its default impersonal form, -si. If the sentence used a specific subject, like I must stop (devo fermarmi), the pronoun would change to match the person.

The word pedone ends in -e. How do we know its gender and plural form?

You can tell pedone is masculine here because it uses the masculine article un instead of the feminine un' with an apostrophe. Like most Italian nouns ending in -e, it forms its plural with an -i, becoming pedoni.