Breakdown of Il testimone deve comprare gli anelli d'oro.
di
of, from
comprare
to buy
dovere
must
l'anello
the ring (m)
l'oro
the gold (m)
il testimone
the best man
Questions & Answers about Il testimone deve comprare gli anelli d'oro.
Wait, doesn't testimone usually mean "witness"? Why is it translated as "best man"?
Is testimone always a masculine noun?
No, it can be masculine or feminine depending on the person, but the word itself doesn't change its ending. It is an invariant noun. We know it means the best man here because of the masculine definite article il. If it were the maid of honor, it would be la testimone.
Why is it d'oro instead of a specific adjective for "golden"?
In Italian, to express what material an object is made of, you almost always use the preposition di (of) followed by the noun for the material. Since oro (gold) starts with a vowel, di drops its i and takes an apostrophe, becoming d'oro.
How would this sentence change to use the causative "fare" if the best man has his brother buy the rings?
You would conjugate fare for the best man and leave comprare in the infinitive: Il testimone fa comprare gli anelli d'oro a suo fratello. In the causative construction, because there is already a direct object (gli anelli d'oro), the person who is made to do the action (the brother) must act as the indirect object, which is why he is introduced by the preposition a.
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