Question 1

How could we rewrite this sentence using the current lesson's verb, tenerci, to say "We care about preserving our folklore"?

Accepted Answer

You would say Ci teniamo a preservare l'essenza del nostro folklore. Because tenerci means "to care about" or "to attach importance to," it captures a very similar feeling to calling it "essential." Notice that tenerci must be followed by the preposition a when linking to an infinitive like preservare.

Question 2

Doesn't the impersonal phrase È essenziale usually trigger the subjunctive?

Accepted Answer

It does, but only when you introduce a specific subject using the word che (that). For example, "It is essential that we preserve..." would be È essenziale che noi preserviamo... (using the subjunctive). In our current sentence, because we are making a general statement without a specific subject, we simply use the infinitive preservare directly after the adjective.

Question 3

Why is it del nostro folklore instead of just di nostro folklore?

Accepted Answer

In Italian, you almost always need the definite article before a possessive adjective. Here, the preposition di combines with the article il to form the articulated preposition del. You only drop the article for singular, unmodified family members (like mio fratello), which obviously doesn't apply to the word folklore.

Question 4

Is the English loanword folklore treated like a normal Italian noun?

Accepted Answer

Mostly, yes! The vast majority of foreign loanwords ending in a consonant are assigned the masculine gender in Italian. They are also invariable, meaning they don't change their ending if made plural. You might also occasionally see this word spelled in a more Italianized way: folclore.

È essenziale preservare l'essenza del nostro folklore.

Breakdown of È essenziale preservare l'essenza del nostro folklore.

Questions & Answers about È essenziale preservare l'essenza del nostro folklore.

Learn È essenziale preservare l'essenza del nostro folklore and more in Italian