Word
Ci teniamo a preservare l'autenticità di questo piatto.
Meaning
We care about preserving the authenticity of this dish.
Part of speech
sentence
Pronunciation
Course
Breakdown of Ci teniamo a preservare l'autenticità di questo piatto.
questo
this (masculine)
il piatto
the plate
di
of, from
a
(linking a verb to a following infinitive)
Questions & Answers about Ci teniamo a preservare l'autenticità di questo piatto.
Why is there a ci in front of teniamo?
The ci is part of the pronominal verb tenerci. While tenere alone usually means 'to hold' or 'to keep', adding the pronoun ci changes the meaning to 'to care about', 'to value', or 'to attach importance to'. It conjugates just like tenere, with ci placed before the conjugated verb.
Why do we use the preposition a before preservare?
When tenerci is followed by another verb to express what you care about doing, it always requires the preposition a before the infinitive. If you were linking it to a noun instead of a verb, you would still use a (for example, Ci teniamo alla tradizione).
Could I translate 'We care about' using importare instead?
Yes, but the grammar and nuance change. Tenerci conjugates to match the person who cares (noi ci teniamo). Importare works like piacere, making the action the subject: Ci importa preservare... (literally: 'Preserving matters to us'). Tenerci also often carries a stronger sense of active personal effort than importare.
I noticed autenticità ends in an accented vowel. How does it change in the plural?