Learn Italian: Ci vuole pazienza per ascoltare una tale assurdità. - It takes patience to listen to such an absurdity.

When tale is used to mean "such a" with a singular noun, it is almost always preceded by an indefinite article (un, uno, una, un'). Without the article, tale assurdità sounds much more formal and translates closer to "this absurdity" or "the aforementioned absurdity".

Can I put tale after the noun, as in un'assurdità tale?

Yes, you can! Placing tale after the noun (un'assurdità tale) is grammatically correct and places stronger emphasis on the intensity of the noun, making it sound like "an absurdity of such magnitude". Placing it before the noun, as in this sentence, is the standard and most common word order.

Why don't we say la pazienza here, since abstract nouns usually require definite articles in Italian?

It is true that abstract nouns generally take a definite article, such as in the phrase la pazienza è una virtù (patience is a virtue). However, in this sentence, pazienza represents an unspecified amount of something needed for a task (some patience). When expressing an unspecified quantity of an uncountable concept after verbs like volerci or avere, the article is usually dropped.

Why use ci vuole instead of ci mette here?