Learn Italian: Maria è una ragazza molto sensibile.

Maria è una ragazza molto sensibile.

Maria is a very sensitive girl.

Breakdown of Maria è una ragazza molto sensibile.

Questions & Answers about Maria è una ragazza molto sensibile.

Why does sensibile mean 'sensitive' instead of 'sensible'?

Sensibile is a classic false friend! In Italian, it means 'sensitive' (feeling things deeply). If you want to say someone is 'sensible' (practical and showing good judgment), you would use a word like ragionevole.

Maria is a girl, so why doesn't the adjective end in -a, like sensibila?

In Italian, adjectives that end in -e in their singular dictionary form (like sensibile, intelligente, or grande) do not change for gender. They stay the same for both masculine and feminine nouns. They only change for the plural, where they take an -i ending.

Since Maria is feminine, why doesn't molto change to molta?

In this sentence, molto is acting as an adverb meaning 'very' to describe how sensitive she is. When molto is an adverb, it never changes its ending. It only changes to match gender and number when it is used as an adjective meaning 'a lot of' or 'many' right before a noun.

Could I change the word order and say una molto sensibile ragazza?

No. While some simple adjectives can go before the noun, when an adjective is paired with an adverb like molto (very), the whole phrase needs to go after the noun. Therefore, it must be una ragazza molto sensibile.