Learn Italian: Mescolo la farina con il latte. - I mix the flour with the milk.

Mescolo la farina con il latte.

I mix the flour with the milk.

Breakdown of Mescolo la farina con il latte.

Questions & Answers about Mescolo la farina con il latte.

In English we just say "I mix flour with milk". Why does this sentence use "la" and "il"?

In Italian, you almost always need a definite article (il, la, etc.) before uncountable or "mass" nouns like farina (flour) and latte (milk) when talking about them in general. English leaves the article out, but dropping it in Italian here would sound unnatural.

What is the infinitive (dictionary form) of mescolo?

It comes from the regular verb mescolare (to mix). To make the "I" form in the present tense, you drop the -are ending and add -o, which gives you mescolo (I mix).

Could I combine con and il into one word here?

Yes! You can combine the preposition con (with) and the article il (the) into the single word col. Saying Mescolo la farina col latte is perfectly correct and very common in everyday spoken Italian.

Why is it il latte? Doesn't it end in -e?

Italian nouns that end in -e can be either masculine or feminine, and you just have to memorize their gender. Latte happens to be masculine, so it takes the masculine article il.