Learn Italian: Se il cliente è esigente, devi essere più convincente! - If the customer is demanding, you must be more convincing!

Se il cliente è esigente, devi essere più convincente!

If the customer is demanding, you must be more convincing!

Breakdown of Se il cliente è esigente, devi essere più convincente!

more / anymore (with 'non')

Questions & Answers about Se il cliente è esigente, devi essere più convincente!

Both esigente and convincente end in -ente. Are these related to verbs?

Yes! They are the present participles of the verbs esigere (to demand) and convincere (to convince), acting here as adjectives. To form a present participle, you drop the infinitive ending and add -ante for -are verbs, or -ente for -ere and -ire verbs.

Il cliente is masculine. How would the adjectives change if the customer were a woman (la cliente)?

They wouldn't change at all! Because the adjectives esigente and convincente end in -e, they are the same for both masculine and feminine singular nouns. You would simply say: Se la cliente è esigente, devi essere più convincente!

How would this sentence look if we were talking to a group of people about multiple customers?

You would say: Se i clienti sono esigenti, dovete essere più convincenti! Present participles acting as adjectives change their -e ending to -i for the plural, regardless of gender. Also note that devi (you singular must) changes to dovete (you plural must).

Is the verb esigere (to demand) as common as the adjective esigente (demanding)?