Breakdown of C'è qualcosa di molto allettante in questo contratto, ma non mi fido.
questo
this (masculine)
molto
very
ma
but
non
not
c'è
there is / there are
in
in / made of (material)
qualcosa
something
il contratto
the contract
fidarsi
to trust
di
(linking an indefinite pronoun to an adjective)
allettante
tempting
Questions & Answers about C'è qualcosa di molto allettante in questo contratto, ma non mi fido.
Why is there a di after qualcosa? Could I just say qualcosa molto allettante?
No, you need the di. In Italian, when an indefinite pronoun like qualcosa (something) or niente (nothing) is followed by an adjective, you must connect them with the preposition di. So "something tempting" becomes qualcosa di allettante.
The adjective allettante looks like a verb form. Where does it come from?
It is the present participle of the verb allettare (to attract, to entice). Like many present participles in Italian (words ending in -ante or -ente), it functions perfectly as a standard adjective.
The English translation says "I do not trust it", but the Italian just says non mi fido. Where is the "it"?
The verb fidarsi (to trust) is reflexive and takes the preposition di to introduce what is trusted. When the context is clear, Italians often drop the object entirely and just say non mi fido (I don't trust). If you wanted to explicitly include the "it", you would use the pronoun ne (meaning "of it"), changing the phrase to non me ne fido.
Is the non in non mi fido an example of the pleonastic "non" from this lesson?
No, this is just a regular negative non making the verb negative ("I do not trust"). A pleonastic non is an untranslated "filler" negative used in specific comparative clauses (like più di quanto non pensassi - more than I thought). Here, we just have a standard clause where the negation is literal.
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