Breakdown of Ho difficoltà a capire il suo accento.
capire
to understand
l'accento
the accent (m)
avere difficoltà
to have difficulty
Questions & Answers about Ho difficoltà a capire il suo accento.
Why do we use a after difficoltà instead of di?
Certain nouns require specific prepositions before an infinitive verb. The noun difficoltà always pairs with the preposition a when expressing difficulty doing something. You can treat avere difficoltà a as a fixed expression to memorize.
English uses the -ing form 'understanding' here. Why does Italian use the infinitive capire instead of the gerund capendo?
When an Italian verb follows a preposition like a, it must always be in the infinitive form. The Italian gerund is used to show ongoing actions or to mean 'while doing something', but it never follows a preposition.
Since suo translates to 'his' here, how would you say 'her accent'?
Why do we need the article il before suo accento?
Italian almost always requires a definite article before a possessive adjective. The main exception is for singular family members, but since accento is just a regular noun, you must include the article and say il suo.
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