Breakdown of Il bambino beve il succo di mela.
la mela
the apple
il bambino
the child
di
of, from
bere
to drink
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?
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?