Question 1

Why is there a di between deciso and parlare?

Accepted Answer

In Italian, certain verbs require a specific preposition before another verb in its infinitive form. The verb decidere (to decide) pairs with di. So, "to decide to do something" is always decidere di fare qualcosa.

Question 2

Why does the sentence use the infinitive collaborare instead of a gerund for "collaborating"?

Accepted Answer

While English uses the "-ing" form after words like "before", Italian requires the infinitive form of the verb after prepositions. The phrase "before doing something" is always translated using prima di followed by the infinitive, as in prima di collaborare.

Question 3

The word colleghi is masculine plural, but doesn't the singular form collega end in "-a"?

Accepted Answer

Good catch! Collega (colleague) is a noun that ends in "-a" but can be either masculine (il collega) or feminine (la collega). To make it plural, the masculine changes to i colleghi (used for all-male or mixed-gender groups) and the feminine changes to le colleghe (for all-female groups).

Question 4

How would we use the relative pronoun i quali (from our current lesson) with the vocabulary in this sentence?

Accepted Answer

If you wanted to restructure this sentence to say "the colleagues with whom we decided to collaborate", you would say i colleghi con i quali abbiamo deciso di collaborare. Because colleghi is a masculine plural noun, we use i quali after the preposition con to mean "with whom".

Abbiamo deciso di parlare con i colleghi prima di collaborare.

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