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Noi ammucchiamo le erbacce, il che è un lavoro molto pesante.

Noi ammucchiamo le erbacce, il che è un lavoro molto pesante.
We pile up the weeds, which is a very heavy job.
From Lesson 347:Gradual actions (man mano che)·Italian

Questions & Answers about Noi ammucchiamo le erbacce, il che è un lavoro molto pesante.

Why is il che used here instead of just che or cui?
Il che translates to "which" when it refers back to an entire previous clause or idea, rather than a specific noun. Here, it refers to the whole action of piling up the weeds (ammucchiamo le erbacce), not just the weeds themselves. If you just used che, it would grammatically refer only to the weeds.
How is the word erbacce formed?
It uses the pejorative suffix -accia (plural -acce). Added to erba (grass/herb), it creates erbaccia, which literally means "bad grass" or "weed". This is a common way in Italian to give a noun a negative, ugly, or poor-quality nuance without using a separate adjective.
How does the spelling work for the noi form of ammucchiare?
The verb ammucchiare (to pile up, from the noun mucchio) has a stem ending in 'i' (ammucchi-). When adding the regular noi ending -iamo, you don't double the 'i'—the two combine into a single 'i', resulting in ammucchiamo.
Does pesante mean the same thing figuratively as it does in English?
Yes! Just like "heavy" in English, pesante can be used both literally for weight and figuratively to describe something physically exhausting, tedious, or hard to endure. Therefore, un lavoro molto pesante is a perfectly natural way to say "a very hard job".

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