Breakdown of Questo fine settimana mi faccio una maratona di questa nuova serie.
una
a / an (feminine)
nuovo
new
questo
this (masculine)
di
of, from
fare
to do / to make
il fine settimana
the weekend
mi
to me
la serie
the series
la maratona
the marathon
Questions & Answers about Questo fine settimana mi faccio una maratona di questa nuova serie.
Why is there a mi before faccio? Isn't fare just a regular verb meaning 'to do' or 'to make'?
Yes, fare is a regular verb. The mi here is an 'affective dative' (or ethical dative). It is an extra pronoun added to show that the speaker is doing the action for their own personal benefit or enjoyment. You don't strictly need it for the sentence to make grammatical sense, but it adds a cozy, self-indulgent vibe, much like saying 'I am going to watch me a movie' in informal English.
If I just said faccio una maratona instead, would the sentence mean the exact same thing?
Almost, but it loses the emotional nuance. Faccio una maratona states the objective fact: 'I am doing a marathon' (which, out of context, could even sound like actual running). Adding the mi to make it mi faccio una maratona translates closer to 'I am treating myself to a marathon' or 'I am having myself a binge-watch', emphasizing your personal enjoyment of the activity.
The English translation says 'I'll treat myself', but mi faccio is in the present tense. Why not use the future tense here?
In Italian, it is extremely common to use the present tense for near-future events that are already planned or certain to happen. Because you establish the future time frame right away with Questo fine settimana (This weekend), using the present tense mi faccio is perfectly natural and actually more common in spoken Italian than using the future tense mi farò.
Why does the singular noun serie end in an '-e', and what would its plural form be?
Serie is one of a few Italian nouns ending in '-ie' that are invariable, meaning they do not change their form in the plural. You know it is singular in this sentence because it is modified by the singular adjectives questa and nuova. If you wanted to talk about multiple series, the noun stays exactly the same, but the words around it change: queste nuove serie.
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