Breakdown of Visto che Lei è uno studente proveniente dall'estero, paghi la retta.
essere
to be
lo studente
the student
uno
a / an (masculine special)
Lei
you (formal)
da
from, at (someone's place) / by (oneself), on one's own
l'estero
abroad (m)
pagare
to pay
visto che
seeing that
la retta
the tuition fee
provenire
to come from
Questions & Answers about Visto che Lei è uno studente proveniente dall'estero, paghi la retta.
Why does the sentence use proveniente instead of che proviene?
proveniente is the present participle of provenire (to come from). In Italian, present participles can function as verbal relative clauses, directly replacing che + verb. While che proviene dall'estero is perfectly correct, using proveniente is more concise and sounds slightly more administrative, which perfectly fits an instruction about paying tuition fees.
Why is the verb paghi used here instead of paga for the command to pay?
Because the sentence uses the formal Lei (notice the capital L). When giving a command to someone formally, Italian uses the present subjunctive form to act as the imperative. For an -are verb like pagare, that formal command form is paghi. If this were an informal sentence, it would use tu and the verb would be paga.
Could I use siccome or poiché instead of visto che?
Why does from abroad translate to dall'estero with an article, instead of just da estero?
Unlike English, which uses the bare word abroad, Italian treats estero (the exterior or foreign countries) as a regular noun that needs a definite article in this context. Therefore, the preposition da merges with the article l' to form dall'estero.
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