Question 1

Why do we need the pronoun la in Questa dieta rigida la seguo when we already stated the diet?

Accepted Answer

This is a common Italian structure called "left dislocation." To emphasize the diet, we move the direct object (Questa dieta rigida) to the very beginning of the sentence. When you do this in Italian, you must add a matching direct object pronoun (here, la) right before the verb to link it all back together.

Question 2

Why is it anche non dimagrendo instead of anche se non dimagrisco?

Accepted Answer

Both mean "even though I'm not losing weight." Using anche + the gerund (dimagrendo) is an "implicit" concessive clause. It's just a more concise way to express the same idea compared to using anche se + a conjugated verb. Notice that to make it negative, you simply put non right before the gerund.

Question 3

How do we know who isn't losing weight in the phrase anche non dimagrendo?

Accepted Answer

Implicit clauses using a gerund almost always share the same subject as the main clause. Since the main verb is seguo (I follow), we automatically know that "I" am the one not losing weight. If the subjects were different, you couldn't use the gerund; you'd have to use a full clause like anche se lui non dimagrisce.

Question 4

Could I use pur instead of anche here?

Accepted Answer

Yes, absolutely! Pur non dimagrendo means exactly the same thing. Pur + gerund is actually the most common way to build these implicit "even though" clauses in Italian, but anche + gerund works in the exact same way and has the identical meaning here.

Questa dieta rigida la seguo, anche non dimagrendo.

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