Breakdown of È durante la degustazione che te ne accorgi.
essere
to be
ti
you (direct object)
ne
of it / of them / some (pronoun)
che
who, that (relative pronoun)
accorgersi
to notice / to realize (to become aware)
durante
during
la degustazione
the tasting
Questions & Answers about È durante la degustazione che te ne accorgi.
How does the 'È... che' structure work in this sentence?
This is a cleft sentence (frase scissa). It breaks a normal sentence into two parts to emphasize a specific detail. Instead of just saying Te ne accorgi durante la degustazione (You notice it during the tasting), it frames the time phrase with È and che to stress exactly when it happens: È durante la degustazione che... (It is during the tasting that...).
Why do we use te ne here instead of just ti?
The verb here is accorgersi (to notice or realize), which is a reflexive verb that requires the preposition di to introduce the thing being noticed (accorgersi di qualcosa). To say 'you notice it', we replace 'di it' with the pronoun ne. When the reflexive pronoun ti is placed right before ne, it changes its vowel to e, giving us the cluster te ne accorgi.
If the cleft sentence emphasizes a detail, why don't we drop the pronoun ne?
The cleft structure (È... che) only pulls the emphasized part (durante la degustazione) to the front of the sentence. The rest of the clause must still be grammatically complete on its own. Since you are noticing a specific thing, the verb accorgersi still needs the pronoun ne to represent that thing, even though the overall focus of the sentence has shifted to the timing.
Would the tense of È change if this happened in the past?
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