Question 1

How do we form words like realista and perfezionista from their root words?

Accepted Answer

You typically take a noun or adjective, drop the final vowel, and add -ista. For example, reale (real) becomes realista (realist), and perfezione (perfection) becomes perfezionista. This suffix is heavily used to describe a person's profession, beliefs, or behavioral tendencies.

Question 2

Since the sentence is about a male colleague, why do realista and perfezionista end in -a?

Accepted Answer

Nouns formed with the -ista suffix use the exact same form for both men and women in the singular. We know the colleague is male here because of the masculine article un. If the colleague were female, it would be una realista. However, they do change in the plural: -isti for men and -iste for women.

Question 3

The word collega also ends in -a but is masculine here (il mio collega). Is that because of the -ista rule?

Accepted Answer

No, collega does not contain the -ista suffix, but it behaves in a very similar way! It comes from Latin and keeps a singular -a ending for both men (il collega) and women (la collega). Just like -ista words, its plurals split by gender: i colleghi (male) and le colleghe (female).

Question 4

I learned that Italian usually drops the article for professions and identities (like lui è medico). Why do we use un here?

Accepted Answer

While Italian drops the indefinite article when neutrally stating someone's profession, we keep it when describing someone's character, ideology, or personality type, which is what is happening with un realista and un perfezionista. You also keep the article if you add an adjective to a profession (for example, è un bravo medico).

Il mio collega non è un realista, è un perfezionista.

Breakdown of Il mio collega non è un realista, è un perfezionista.

Questions & Answers about Il mio collega non è un realista, è un perfezionista.

Learn Il mio collega non è un realista, è un perfezionista and more in Italian