Learn Italian: Prima di iniziare, si deve leggere il regolamento. - Before starting, one must read the regulation.

Prima di iniziare, si deve leggere il regolamento.

Before starting, one must read the regulation.

Breakdown of Prima di iniziare, si deve leggere il regolamento.

Questions & Answers about Prima di iniziare, si deve leggere il regolamento.

Why is it si deve leggere instead of just deve leggere?

The si here is the impersonal 'si', which translates to 'one', 'you' (in a general sense), or 'people'. Si deve leggere means 'one must read'. It is very commonly used for general rules or instructions where the exact person doing the action doesn't matter.

If we changed il regolamento (the regulation) to le regole (the rules), would the verb change?

Yes! Because the object (le regole) is plural, the verb must also be plural. It would become si devono leggere le regole. In Italian, when an impersonal si sentence has a direct object, the verb must agree with that object.

This lesson is about chiunque (anyone/whoever). Could I use chiunque here instead of the impersonal si?

You could express a similar idea, but it requires changing the sentence structure entirely. Chiunque acts as a pronoun meaning 'anyone who' or 'whoever', and it usually triggers the subjunctive when setting a condition. You would have to say something like: Chiunque voglia iniziare deve leggere il regolamento (Whoever wants to start must read the regulation).

Why is iniziare in the infinitive here?

In Italian, the phrase prima di (before) is always followed by an infinitive verb when the subject doing the action is the same as the main clause, or when the sentence is a general, impersonal statement like this one.