Breakdown of Mi piace questo stile di vita, nonostante la differenza culturale.
questo
this (masculine)
di
of, from
la vita
the life
mi
to me
piacere
to please / to like
nonostante
despite / although (in spite of)
la differenza
the difference
culturale
cultural
lo stile
the style
Questions & Answers about Mi piace questo stile di vita, nonostante la differenza culturale.
Why doesn't nonostante trigger the subjunctive mood in this sentence?
Nonostante (despite/although) is famous for requiring the subjunctive, but only if it introduces a clause with a verb. In this sentence, it functions as a preposition followed simply by a noun phrase (la differenza culturale). Because there is no verb attached to the "despite" part of the sentence, the subjunctive isn't needed!
Why is it questo stile? Aren't words ending in "-e" usually feminine?
Nouns ending in -e in Italian can actually be either masculine or feminine, and you generally just have to memorize them. Stile (style) happens to be masculine. Paying attention to the word immediately before it—like the masculine demonstrative adjective questo—is a great trick to help you remember its gender.
How does Italian form compound words like "lifestyle"?
As a quick refresher, why do we use the singular piace instead of piacciono here?
The verb piacere acts backwards compared to English: it literally means "to be pleasing to". The thing that is pleasing is the grammatical subject. Since questo stile di vita (this lifestyle) is singular, we use the singular verb form piace. You would only use piacciono if the thing being liked was plural.
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