Breakdown of Il papà è severo, ma la mamma è gentile.
essere
to be
ma
but
gentile
kind
severo
strict
la mamma
the mom
il papà
the dad
Questions & Answers about Il papà è severo, ma la mamma è gentile.
Why does the Italian sentence use il and la when the English translation just says 'Dad' and 'Mom'?
In Italian, when you talk about 'Dad' or 'Mom' as subjects of a sentence, you generally must use the definite articles il and la. Unlike English, you cannot just say papà or mamma on their own in this context.
How do papà and mamma fit into the rule about dropping the article for family members?
They are important exceptions! The current lesson teaches you to drop the article with singular family members when using a possessive (like mio padre for 'my father'). However, affectionate terms like papà and mamma always keep the article. If you wanted to say 'my dad', you must include the article: il mio papà.
Severo ends in '-o' to match the masculine papà. Why does gentile end in '-e' instead of '-a' for mamma?
Adjectives that naturally end in '-e' in the dictionary, like gentile (kind), are the same for both masculine and feminine nouns. They do not change to '-a' for feminine words. They only change their ending to '-i' when they become plural.
Why does papà have an accent mark on the last letter?
The accent mark shows you that your voice should stress the final syllable (pa-PA). This is very important to get right in Italian, because without the accent mark, papa (PA-pa) means 'Pope'!
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