Index / Language / Records / Italian / Grammar
Which preposition a verb, noun or adjective demands. Lexically fixed, not derivable — and your two other Romance languages each offer a different wrong answer.
The control text · argumentative
Vietare il cellulare in classe sembra una misura drastica, ma i dati suggeriscono che funzioni. Nelle scuole che hanno introdotto il divieto, gli insegnanti segnalano meno interruzioni e un calo dei casi di cyberbullismo. È vero che lo strumento serve anche allo studio, e sarebbe ingenuo negarlo. Resta il fatto che il costo della distrazione ricade su chi ha meno sostegno a casa. Finché non ci saranno prove che l'uso libero migliori l'apprendimento, l'onere della prova spetta a chi difende il permesso.
Where the two part
Standard · the base
Fixed by the item, not by meaning. Pensare a is to think about; pensare di is to intend or to hold an opinion. Both are correct and they are not interchangeable.
Regional · the contrast
Some regional speech swaps prepositions. The swaps are heard as regionalisms and marked as errors in writing.
10 options
Non riesco a ottenere una risposta.
The tella plus infinitive, always.
High frequency and completely regular. One of the most useful verbs in the language.
Spanish conseguir takes no preposition, so your instinct omits the a.
Cerco di risolvere la questione da maggio.
The telldi plus infinitive.
Pairs neatly against riuscire a: trying takes di, succeeding takes a.
Nothing in the meaning predicts which, so the pair must be learned together.
| Form | Sense |
|---|---|
| pensare a | to think about — ci penso io |
| pensare di | to intend, or to have an opinion — penso di scrivere |
The tellThe preposition changes the meaning, not just the shape.
The clearest demonstration in the family that government is semantic as well as formal.
Both are common, so the wrong one produces a sentence that works and says something else.
Preferisco scrivere. · Voglio disdire. · Devo insistere.
The tellModals and a small set of others take a bare infinitive.
A closed list, and it covers the highest-frequency verbs in the language.
Adding a preposition here is a visible error, and Portuguese will tempt you to add one.
| Preposition | Used with |
|---|---|
| in | countries, regions, rooms — in Italia, in banca |
| a | cities, and a short list of others — a Roma, a casa |
The tellCities take a, countries take in. Almost no exceptions.
A genuine rule in a domain that mostly has none.
The short list of a exceptions (a scuola, a letto, a teatro) has to be learned separately.
da maggio · addebitato dalla banca · vengo da Milano
The tellda covers from, since and by, which no single word does in your other languages.
One preposition doing three jobs is fewer things to remember, not more.
It collides with di for origin, and Spanish de maps onto both.
| Adjective | Preposition |
|---|---|
| contento | di |
| pronto | a |
| capace | di |
| utile | a or per |
The tellAdjectives govern too, and the choice is as fixed as it is for verbs.
A smaller list than the verbs, so it is cheaper to close.
Usually taught late or not at all, so errors here go uncorrected for a long time.
la voglia di scrivere · il diritto a una risposta · la paura di sbagliare
The tellNouns govern as well, and Anchor B contains l'onere della prova.
Nominalised writing depends on getting these right, so it feeds directly into DIS-04.
The list is open-ended, which makes it the least closeable part of the domain.
| Sense | Italian | Spanish offers |
|---|---|---|
| to try | cercare di | tratar de — agrees |
| to manage | riuscire a | conseguir + bare — misleads |
| to think about | pensare a | pensar en — misleads |
The tellA preposition that arrives from Spanish and is nearly right.
Named because half your instincts here are correct, which is worse than none: the wrong half hides among the right.
Correct often enough that nothing prompts you to check.
Portuguese gostar de, precisar de and the rest map onto Italian differently again
The tellTwo source languages, two different wrong answers, and no way to tell from inside which one is speaking.
On the sheet because your interference profile is genuinely unusual and this domain is where it costs most.
No enumerated list here — it would have to be built from your own errors, which is what EXM-03 is for.