Breakdown of Alla scuola elementare i bambini imparano molte cose.
il bambino
the child
molto
a lot of / much
la cosa
the thing
alla
to the / at the (feminine singular)
Questions & Answers about Alla scuola elementare i bambini imparano molte cose.
Why do we use "Alla" instead of just "A" or "In" for "At primary school"?
In Italian, the preposition a is used with scuola, meaning "at" or "to" school. Because we are specifying exactly which school by adding the adjective elementare (primary), we need to combine a with the definite article la (the), giving us alla. If we just said "at school" without specifying, it would simply be a scuola.
Why is there an "i" before "bambini"? The English translation doesn't say "the children".
In Italian, you almost always need a definite article (like il, la, i, le) when talking about a general category or a whole group as the subject of a sentence. Since we are making a general statement about children, we must use i bambini, even though English leaves the article out.
Why does "elementare" end in "-e" if it describes a feminine word like "scuola"?
Elementare belongs to a group of Italian adjectives that end in -e in the singular, regardless of whether the noun they describe is masculine or feminine. It only changes to -i for plurals, so "primary schools" would be scuole elementari.
How do we know to use "molte" instead of "molto" here?