Word
È pericoloso sorpassare un'altra macchina qui.
Meaning
It is dangerous to overtake another car here.
Part of speech
sentence
Pronunciation
Course
Breakdown of È pericoloso sorpassare un'altra macchina qui.
essere
to be
un
a / an (masculine)
la macchina
the car
qui
here
Questions & Answers about È pericoloso sorpassare un'altra macchina qui.
Why does the sentence use the infinitive sorpassare instead of conjugating it?
Just like the expression bisogna (it is necessary) that you are learning in this lesson, impersonal phrases like è pericoloso (it is dangerous) are followed directly by the infinitive of the verb. You are making a general statement, not talking about a specific person doing the action.
Why is the adjective pericoloso in the masculine singular form here?
In impersonal expressions starting with è (like è facile, è difficile, or è pericoloso), the adjective always takes the default masculine singular form. Even though the sentence mentions a feminine noun (macchina) later, pericoloso describes the general action of overtaking, not the car itself.
Why is there an apostrophe in un'altra?
The word macchina (car) is feminine, so we need the feminine words una (a/an) and altra (other). When una comes right before a word starting with a vowel like altra, the final a drops and is replaced by an apostrophe to make it easier to say. Remember that this only happens with feminine words; masculine words starting with a vowel just use un without an apostrophe.
Could I use qua instead of qui at the end of this sentence?