Breakdown of Sostiene di essere altruista, ma in realtà è un ipocrita.
essere
to be
un
a / an (masculine)
ma
but
in
in / made of (material)
di
to (linking a verb to a following infinitive)
sostenere
to claim
la realtà
the reality
altruista
altruistic
ipocrita
hypocritical
in realtà
actually, in fact (contrary to appearances)
Questions & Answers about Sostiene di essere altruista, ma in realtà è un ipocrita.
How would I use the pronoun lo to say "he claims to be altruistic, but in reality he isn't"?
Why do we use di before essere here?
Verbs of declaring, thinking, or believing (like sostenere, credere, and dire) take the preposition di plus an infinitive when the subject of both actions is the same. Since he is claiming something about himself, we use di essere.
The subject is a masculine "he". Why do altruista and ipocrita end in -a instead of -o?
Nouns and adjectives ending in -ista and -ita (like altruista, ottimista, ipocrita) are identical for masculine and feminine in the singular. You can tell the subject is masculine here because of the article un. If the subject were a woman, the sentence would use un'ipocrita with an apostrophe. Their plurals, however, do show gender: -i for masculine and -e for feminine.
Does sostenere mean "to sustain"?
It can mean "to sustain" or "to support" physically or emotionally, but when followed by a statement of fact or belief, it takes on its other very common meaning: "to claim", "to maintain", or "to argue" a point.
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