Learn Italian: Andiamo verso ovest, verso il mare. - We are going west, toward the sea.

Andiamo verso ovest, verso il mare.

We are going west, toward the sea.

Breakdown of Andiamo verso ovest, verso il mare.

andare

to go / to be fine / to work out

Questions & Answers about Andiamo verso ovest, verso il mare.

Why is there no article before ovest (verso ovest), but there is one before mare (verso il mare)?

In Italian, compass directions like ovest (west), nord (north), and sud (south) usually drop the definite article (the 'the') when they follow prepositions of movement like verso or a. Regular nouns like mare (sea) still need their article, so we use il.

Can andiamo mean both 'we go' and 'we are going'?

Yes! In Italian, the regular present tense covers both the simple present ('we go') and the present continuous ('we are going'). You don't need a complicated verb structure here; andiamo does the job for both.

Does the word verso always mean 'toward'?

When talking about a physical direction or location like in this sentence, verso means 'toward' or 'in the direction of'. However, if you use it with time, it means 'around' (for example, verso le otto means 'around eight o'clock').

Could I use a instead of verso here, like andiamo a ovest?

Yes, you can say andiamo a ovest to mean 'we are going west' or 'to the west'. Using verso here just adds a little more emphasis on the physical direction or journey itself, perfectly translating to 'toward the west'.