Breakdown of Aggiungo i piselli al riso.
al
to the / at the
aggiungere
to add
il riso
the rice
il pisello
the pea
Questions & Answers about Aggiungo i piselli al riso.
What is the infinitive of aggiungo and why does its pronunciation change?
The infinitive is aggiungere (to add). Notice that aggiungere has a soft 'j' sound, but aggiungo has a hard 'g' sound (like in 'go'). Verbs ending in -gere keep the 'g' spelling, which naturally hardens before the vowels 'o' (io aggiungo) and 'a' (loro aggiungono), but stays soft before 'e' and 'i' (tu aggiungi, lui/lei aggiunge).
Why do we use al before riso instead of just a?
Al is an articulated preposition, which means it combines the preposition a (to) and the definite article il (the). Because Italian requires the definite article before riso in this context, a + il must merge together into al.
Could I leave out the articles and just say 'Aggiungo piselli a riso'?
No, that would sound unnatural. English speakers might say 'I add peas to rice' without any articles, but Italian strongly prefers using definite articles for ingredients. That is why we need i for piselli and the il (hidden inside al) for riso.
Is riso always used in the singular form?