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Faccio collezione di figurine.

Faccio collezione di figurine.
I collect trading cards.
From Lesson 106:The imperfect tense of regular verbs (-avo, -evo, -ivo)·Italian

Questions & Answers about Faccio collezione di figurine.

Why does this sentence use faccio (I make/do) instead of a verb for "to collect"?
Italian actually does have a regular verb for this: collezionare. However, it is extremely common to use the phrase fare collezione di (literally "to make a collection of"). Both are perfectly correct and mean exactly the same thing!
How would I say "I used to collect trading cards" using the imperfetto tense from this lesson?
You would change faccio to its past continuous form. Because fare is an irregular verb, it becomes facevo. The sentence would be Facevo collezione di figurine. If you used the regular verb instead, it would be Collezionavo figurine.
Why isn't there an article, like una, before collezione?
In many fixed expressions where fare is paired with a noun to describe a general activity, Italian drops the article. Because you are talking about the hobby of collecting rather than pointing out one specific physical collection, you just say faccio collezione.
What exactly is a figurina?
A figurina (plural: figurine) is a trading card or a collectible sticker. The word is made by taking figura (figure or picture) and adding the ending -ina (small). Collecting football stickers to paste into albums is a massive childhood tradition in Italy!

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