Word
Se volessi fare beneficenza, finanzieresti la ricerca?
Meaning
If you wanted to give to charity, would you finance research?
Part of speech
sentence
Pronunciation
Course
Breakdown of Se volessi fare beneficenza, finanzieresti la ricerca?
fare
to do / to make
volere
to want
se
if
la
her/it (direct object)
Questions & Answers about Se volessi fare beneficenza, finanzieresti la ricerca?
Why do we use volessi here instead of a regular past tense like volevi?
This sentence uses the second conditional to talk about a hypothetical present or future situation. In Italian, when you say "If [something hypothetical happened]", the "if" part (se) must be followed by the imperfect subjunctive (like volessi). The result part then uses the present conditional (finanzieresti).
Volessi can mean "I wanted" or "you wanted". How do we know it means "you" here?
You have to look at the context from the rest of the sentence. The second verb, finanzieresti, is clearly the tu (you) form. Because the two actions are connected, we assume the same subject for both. If the speaker meant "If I wanted to give to charity, would you finance research?", they would have added the pronoun to avoid confusion, saying Se io volessi...
Why does the Italian sentence use fare for "giving to charity"?
The standard Italian expression for donating to or doing charity work is fare beneficenza (literally, "to do charity"). You cannot translate the English phrase "give to charity" word-for-word using the Italian verb for give (dare).
Why does the sentence say la ricerca with the article, when the English translation just says "research"?