Learn Italian: Il ragazzo pulisce tutta la gabbia dei leoni. - The boy is cleaning the whole lion cage.

In Italian, when using a form of tutto to mean 'all' or 'the whole', you must include the definite article between the word for 'all' and the noun. Since gabbia is feminine singular, the correct structure is tutta + la + gabbia.

Does tutta mean 'all' or 'the whole' here?

Because gabbia (cage) is singular, tutta means 'the whole' or 'the entire' cage. If the noun were plural, like tutte le gabbie, it would translate to 'all the cages'.

Why is the verb pulisce and not just pule?

The verb here is pulire (to clean). It belongs to a group of -ire verbs that insert -isc- between the stem and the ending in most present tense forms. For he/she/it, the ending is -e, making it pulisce.

Why do we use dei leoni to say 'lion cage'?

Italian doesn't stack nouns together like English does. Instead of saying 'lion cage', you have to say 'the cage of the lions'. Dei is a combination of the preposition di (of) and the plural article i (the). So, la gabbia dei leoni literally translates to 'the cage of the lions'.