Breakdown of Questo è il diciassettesimo libro che leggo in questa lingua.
essere
to be
il libro
the book
questo
this (masculine)
questa
this (feminine)
in
in / made of (material)
leggere
to read
la lingua
the language
che
who, that (relative pronoun)
diciassettesimo
seventeenth
Questions & Answers about Questo è il diciassettesimo libro che leggo in questa lingua.
How is diciassettesimo formed from the number seventeen?
Are there any tricky spelling rules to remember for diciassettesimo?
Just remember to keep all the double consonants from the original number! Because diciassette already has a double s and a double t, you must keep both of those doubles when adding the -esimo suffix.
Why is the present tense leggo translated as "I have read" instead of "I read"?
In English, we usually use the present perfect ("I have read") when counting experiences up to the present moment. In Italian, however, it is very common to just use the present tense (leggo) in relative clauses like this one, literally saying "This is the seventeenth book that I read."
Why do we use questo at the beginning of the sentence but questa at the end?
They are both forms of the demonstrative "this," but they play different roles here. The first questo is a pronoun standing entirely on its own as the subject, so it takes the default masculine singular form. The second one, questa, is an adjective modifying lingua (language), which is a feminine singular noun, so it must agree with it.
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