Learn Italian: Abbiamo deciso di parlare con i colleghi prima di collaborare. - We decided to talk with the colleagues before collaborating.

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.

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

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.

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

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).

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