Learn Italian: Guardiamo tutti gli elefanti e tutte le giraffe. - We are watching all the elephants and all the giraffes.

Guardiamo tutti gli elefanti e tutte le giraffe.

We are watching all the elephants and all the giraffes.

Breakdown of Guardiamo tutti gli elefanti e tutte le giraffe.

and

guardare

to look at / to watch

Questions & Answers about Guardiamo tutti gli elefanti e tutte le giraffe.

Why do we say tutti gli elefanti instead of just tutti elefanti?

When using a form of tutto (meaning all) with a noun, Italian requires you to include the definite article (il, la, i, gli, le) right after it. While in English we can say either all elephants or all the elephants, Italian always needs the article.

Why does the word for all change from tutti to tutte in the same sentence?

The word tutto changes its ending to match the gender and number of the noun it describes. Elefanti is masculine plural, so it takes tutti. Giraffe is feminine plural, so it takes tutte.

I forget, why do we use the article gli for elephants instead of i?

For masculine plural nouns, the standard article is i. But because elefanti starts with a vowel, you must use gli instead to make it flow better when spoken.

If I want to translate this as we are looking at all the elephants, do I need to add a preposition for at?

No extra word is needed! The verb guardare means both to watch and to look at. The concept of at is already built into the verb, so you just place the thing you are looking at directly after it.