Breakdown of È un lavoro minuzioso, ma lo continuo a fare.
essere
to be
un
a / an (masculine)
ma
but
il lavoro
the work / the job
Questions & Answers about È un lavoro minuzioso, ma lo continuo a fare.
Why is the pronoun lo placed before continuo rather than attached to fare?
This is an example of clitic climbing. With aspectual verbs like continuare a, iniziare a, or finire di that describe the phase of an action, you have a choice. You can either place the pronoun before the conjugated verb (lo continuo a fare) or attach it to the end of the infinitive (continuo a farlo). Both are grammatically correct and mean the exact same thing.
Would it be wrong to say continuo a farlo here?
Why do we need the a in continuo a fare?
The verb continuare requires the preposition a when it is followed by an infinitive verb. Other aspectual verbs use different prepositions (for example, finire requires di, as in finisco di farlo), but iniziare, cominciare, and continuare all pair with a.
Is minuzioso a false friend for English speakers?