Breakdown of Il nostro spazio comune è sempre pulito.
essere
to be
pulito
clean
sempre
always
nostro
our
lo spazio
the space
comune
shared / common
Questions & Answers about Il nostro spazio comune è sempre pulito.
Why is there an il before nostro?
In Italian, you almost always need a definite article (like il, la, i, or le) before a possessive word. While English just says "our space", Italian requires "the our space" (il nostro spazio). The main exception to this rule is when talking about singular family members.
The lesson is about independent possessive pronouns (like "ours"). How would we change this sentence to say "Ours is always clean"?
You would simply drop the noun and say Il nostro è sempre pulito. In Italian, possessive pronouns (like "ours") look exactly the same as possessive adjectives (like "our"). You keep the article il because it stands in for the masculine singular noun spazio that was removed.
Why doesn't the adjective comune end in -o to match the masculine noun spazio?
Why does sempre go between the verb and the adjective?
In Italian, adverbs of frequency like sempre (always) typically go immediately after the conjugated verb. Because of this rule, placing it right after è is the most natural word order, rather than putting it at the very end of the sentence.
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