Breakdown of Se l'aspirapolvere è rotto, lo faccio riparare dal manutentore.
essere
to be
rotto
broken
fare
to do / to make
se
if
lo
him/it (direct object)
riparare
to repair
da
by (agent of a passive verb)
il manutentore
the maintenance worker
l'aspirapolvere
the vacuum cleaner (m)
Questions & Answers about Se l'aspirapolvere è rotto, lo faccio riparare dal manutentore.
Why is the pronoun lo before faccio instead of attached to the end of riparare?
This is the strict rule for causative verbs like fare (to make/have someone do something) and lasciare (to let someone do something). They form a tight unit with the following infinitive. Because of this, object pronouns like lo must go before the conjugated verb (lo faccio riparare) rather than attaching to the infinitive. You cannot say faccio ripararlo.
Why do we use dal manutentore (by the maintenance worker) rather than another preposition?
In causative sentences, if there is a direct object being acted upon (here, lo, representing the vacuum cleaner), the person performing the action is treated as the agent and introduced by da (combined here with il to make dal). This avoids the confusion of having two direct objects in the same sentence.
Is aspirapolvere a masculine or feminine noun? The l' makes it hard to tell.
It is masculine, which we can confirm from the masculine adjective rotto and the masculine pronoun lo. It is a compound noun made from a verb (aspira, meaning sucks) and a noun (polvere, meaning dust). In Italian, verb-noun compound nouns are almost always masculine, even if the noun part is feminine.
Why use the present tense faccio instead of the future tense for an action that will happen later?
In Italian first conditional sentences expressing real or highly probable situations, you can use the present indicative in both clauses if the consequence is immediate or certain. While the future tense is also perfectly fine here, using the present makes it sound like a guaranteed routine.
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