Breakdown of Volevo chiedere se esse scrivono poesie.
scrivere
to write
chiedere
to ask
volere
to want
se
if
la poesia
the poem
esse
they (feminine, literary)
Questions & Answers about Volevo chiedere se esse scrivono poesie.
Why does this sentence use esse instead of loro for 'they'?
Esse is the traditional, literary, or highly formal subject pronoun for the feminine plural ('they' referring to women or feminine nouns). In modern, everyday spoken Italian, you will almost always hear loro used for both masculine and feminine 'they' as a subject, but you need to recognize esse in written texts.
Why is the imperfect tense volevo used here instead of the present voglio or the conditional vorrei?
Using the imperfect tense (volevo) is a very common way to soften a statement or request in everyday Italian, making it less direct and demanding than voglio (I want). It functions similarly to 'I wanted to ask...' or 'I was wanting to ask...' in English. It is slightly less formal than the conditional vorrei (I would like).
Since there is a se (if), why isn't scrivono in the subjunctive mood?
This sentence contains an indirect question ('I wanted to ask whether...'). In Italian, indirect questions introduced by se generally use the indicative mood (like scrivono here) when asking about a concrete, factual action. While the subjunctive can be used to sound more elegant or uncertain, the indicative is standard and perfectly correct.
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