Learn Italian: Che cosa significa questa parola difficile?

Che cosa significa questa parola difficile?

What does this difficult word mean?

Breakdown of Che cosa significa questa parola difficile?

Questions & Answers about Che cosa significa questa parola difficile?

Why use Che cosa for 'what' instead of just Cosa?

In Italian, you can say che, cosa, or che cosa to ask 'what'. They all mean the exact same thing! Che cosa is considered the most traditional and grammatically complete, but in everyday spoken Italian, people often just say cosa.

Where is the word for 'does' in this sentence?

Italian doesn't use helping verbs like 'do' or 'does' to ask questions. You simply use the main verb. So, significa translates to both 'means' and 'does mean'. The sentence literally translates to 'What means this difficult word?'.

Why is it questa parola instead of questo parola?

In Italian, the word for 'this' has to match the gender of the noun it describes. Because parola (word) is a feminine noun, you must use the feminine form questa instead of the masculine questo.

Since parola is feminine, shouldn't difficile end in -a?

Not all adjectives change between -o and -a. Adjectives that end in -e in the singular, like difficile (difficult) or intelligente (smart), stay exactly the same for both masculine and feminine nouns.