Breakdown of Nessuno compra un'arancia aspra se è difficile da sbucciare.
essere
to be
una
a / an (feminine)
difficile
difficult
l'arancia
the orange
comprare
to buy
se
if
nessuno
nobody
da
to (purpose/necessity after a noun)
aspro
sour
sbucciare
to peel
Questions & Answers about Nessuno compra un'arancia aspra se è difficile da sbucciare.
Why do we use da before sbucciare instead of di or a?
When an adjective like difficile (hard), facile (easy), or impossibile (impossible) describes a noun and is followed by an infinitive verb, you must connect them with the preposition da. The pattern is always [adjective] + da + [infinitive].
Since nessuno means 'nobody', why isn't there a non in this sentence to make it negative?
Why does un'arancia have an apostrophe?
Arancia is a feminine noun. The feminine indefinite article is una, but when the noun starts with a vowel, the final 'a' drops and is replaced with an apostrophe. If it were a masculine noun starting with a vowel (like un amico), there would be no apostrophe because the base masculine article is just un.
How do we know 'it is hard' refers to the orange? There is no word for 'it' before è difficile.
Italian almost always drops subject pronouns like 'it', 'he', or 'she'. The verb è (is) combined with the context of the sentence makes it perfectly clear that the orange is still the subject being discussed.
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