Breakdown of Che paura che ci ha fatto il doganiere!
la paura
the fear
fare
to do / to make
ci
to us
che
that (conjunction introducing a clause)
il doganiere
the customs officer
Questions & Answers about Che paura che ci ha fatto il doganiere!
Why are there two che words in this sentence?
The first che translates to 'What' in the exclamation 'What a fear!' (Che paura!). The second che is the focus of this lesson: it is pleonastic, meaning it isn't grammatically required, but it is used to add strong emphasis. In spoken Italian, using this second che to link the exclamation to the rest of the sentence makes the emotional reaction sound much more intense than if you had simply said Che paura ci ha fatto il doganiere!
Why is the verb fare (to make/do) used here to talk about being scared?
Since paura is feminine, why doesn't the past participle agree and become fatta?
In Italian, past participles with the auxiliary verb avere only change their endings to agree with direct object pronouns (like lo, la, li, le). The pronoun ci in this sentence is an indirect object pronoun, meaning 'to us'. Because it is indirect, the past participle does not agree with it and stays in its default masculine singular form, fatto.
Why is the subject (il doganiere) at the very end of the sentence?
Italian allows for very flexible word order, and moving the subject to the end is a common way to build emphasis. By putting the emotional reaction (Che paura) at the very front and delaying the subject until the end, the speaker highlights exactly who caused the scare, making the whole exclamation feel much more dramatic.
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