Learn Italian: Il signore dai baffi bianchi ha un sorriso gentile. - The gentleman with the white mustache has a kind smile.

Il signore dai baffi bianchi ha un sorriso gentile.

The gentleman with the white mustache has a kind smile.

Breakdown of Il signore dai baffi bianchi ha un sorriso gentile.

Questions & Answers about Il signore dai baffi bianchi ha un sorriso gentile.

Why do we use dai here instead of con i for "with the"?

When describing someone's physical characteristics or distinctive clothing, Italian uses the preposition da combined with the definite article. Here, da + i becomes dai. It functions like "with the" to point out a defining feature rather than just an accessory.

Why is "mustache" translated as plural (baffi) in this sentence?

In Italian, a mustache is treated as a collection of hairs and is almost always plural: i baffi. Because the noun is masculine plural, the adjective describing it must also be masculine plural, which is why we see bianchi instead of the singular bianco.

Why does bianchi have an "h" before the "i"?

The singular form is bianco. Because it ends in "-co", making it plural would normally change the pronunciation to a soft "ch" sound if we just added an "i". Adding the "h" to make bianchi preserves the hard "k" sound of the original word.

Why doesn't the adjective gentile end in "-o" to match the masculine noun sorriso?

Gentile belongs to a specific group of Italian adjectives that end in "-e" in the singular. These adjectives do not change to match gender, so gentile works for both masculine (un sorriso) and feminine nouns. It would only change to "-i" if the noun were plural.