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Il bambino beve il succo di mela.

Il bambino beve il succo di mela.
The child drinks the apple juice.
From Lesson 99:Sapori italiani (salumi e piatti)·Italian

Questions & Answers about Il bambino beve il succo di mela.

Why is the verb beve? I thought the infinitive was bere.
The verb bere (to drink) is highly irregular. It actually comes from an older Italian word, bevere, and its present tense forms are built from that old stem: bevo, bevi, beve, beviamo, bevete, bevono. For il bambino, we use the he/she/it form, beve.
Why is "apple juice" translated as succo di mela instead of mela succo?
In Italian, you cannot stack nouns next to each other to make descriptions like we do in English. You must state the main item first (il succo), then use the preposition di (of), followed by the describing word (mela). Literally, you are saying "the juice of apple".
Why isn't there an article before mela, like succo della mela?
When you use a noun to describe a flavor, a material, or a type of thing, you usually drop the definite article and just use the preposition di. Here, mela just tells us the flavor category of the juice, rather than referring to one specific physical apple, so we leave the article out.
Could you also say succo di mele in the plural?
Yes, you will often hear succo di mele (juice of apples) as well. However, using the singular di mela is very common and perfectly correct because it treats "apple" as a general flavor concept rather than focusing on the individual fruits used to make the drink.

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