Breakdown of Credo che l'affluenza sarà molto alta.
essere
to be
molto
very
alto
tall / high
credere
to believe
che
that (conjunction introducing a clause)
l'affluenza
the turnout (f)
Questions & Answers about Credo che l'affluenza sarà molto alta.
Wait, doesn't Credo che always require the subjunctive? Why is sarà in the indicative?
Verbs of thinking and believing do normally trigger the subjunctive, but the Italian subjunctive lacks a future tense. Because the high turnout is a future event, you must fall back on the future indicative (sarà). If the sentence were about the present ('I believe the turnout is high'), it would use the subjunctive: Credo che l'affluenza sia molto alta.
If 'to believe a fact' is often credere a, why is there no a before che?
When you believe a noun, you often use the preposition a (for example, credo a questa storia means 'I believe this story'). However, when you introduce a whole new clause with che (that), Italian syntax requires you to drop the preposition. You can never put a directly before a declarative che, so it is mandatorily deleted.
Is affluenza a false friend to the English word 'affluence'?
Yes! While they share a Latin root meaning 'flowing toward', they mean very different things today. In English, 'affluence' means wealth. In Italian, affluenza refers to a flow of people, making it the standard word for voter 'turnout', 'attendance', or an 'influx' of visitors. If you want to talk about wealth in Italian, use a word like ricchezza.
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