Breakdown of La magistrata ascolterà l'ingegnera, cioè l'esperta.
ascoltare
to listen / to listen to
esperto
expert
l'ingegnere
the engineer (m)
cioè
that is / namely
Questions & Answers about La magistrata ascolterà l'ingegnera, cioè l'esperta.
Historically, women in this profession were often called il magistrato. Why are we using la magistrata here?
You are seeing a modern shift in the Italian language! For a long time, high-ranking professions historically held by men only used the masculine form, even when referring to a woman (e.g., calling a female minister il ministro). Today, it is becoming standard and politically correct to apply regular Italian grammar rules to these titles, changing the masculine -o to a feminine -a to create words like la magistrata.
Why is the feminine form of l'ingegnere written as l'ingegnera instead of using the -essa suffix?
While you probably learned that some feminine nouns take the -essa suffix (like lo studente becoming la studentessa), modern Italian is moving away from that suffix for professional titles. Many native speakers now feel that -essa sounds outdated, patronizing, or less professional. The modern standard for a female engineer is simply to change the final -e to an -a, giving us l'ingegnera.
The English translation says "listen to", but there is no preposition like a after ascolterà. Why?
This is a very common trap for English speakers! In English, "listen" is an intransitive verb that requires the preposition "to". In Italian, ascoltare is a transitive verb, meaning it takes a direct object. You don't "listen to someone" in Italian; you directly "listen someone". Therefore, l'ingegnera attaches directly to the verb without any preposition.