Italian "What" (Questions About Your Target Languages) Language Learning Forum

Italian "What"
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Language Learning Forum : Questions About Your Target Languages

JCF Diglot Newbie United States Joined 6224 days ago 18 posts - 18 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: Russian, German	Message 1 of 3 10 March 2010 at 10:25pm \| IP Logged
	So, if I am correct, there are three ways of saying 'what' in Italian: Che, Che cosa, and Cosa. Are these interchangable or is each used in a specific way? Grazie, Peter 1 person has voted this message useful
goosefrabbas Triglot Pro Member United States Joined 6179 days ago 393 posts - 475 votes Speaks: English*, French, Spanish Studies: German, Italian Personal Language Map	Message 2 of 3 10 March 2010 at 11:32pm \| IP Logged
	It's easier for me to understand it when I relate it to French or even Spanish, so I'll try to use those languages to help. As an interrogative pronoun, they all mean 'what'. "che" and/or "cosa" can always be used instead of "che cosa", but not the other way around. "che cosa" is used as a noun phrase. It is like the Spanish "lo que" or the English "that which", though you'd have to change the word order a bit or use odd structure for it to be clear. For example: English: What does he want? [What is it that he wants?] French: Qu'est-ce qu'il veut? [What is it that he wants?] Spanish: Que quiere? (or que es lo que quiere?) [What is it that {he} wants?] Italian: Che cosa vuole? [What is it that {he} wants?] / Che vuole? / Cosa vuole? Again, this is just how I understand it, but I'm sure there's a much more precise answer than this. I hope it helps! 1 person has voted this message useful
Cainntear Pentaglot Senior Member Scotland linguafrankly.blogsp Joined 5822 days ago 4399 posts - 7687 votes Speaks: Lowland Scots, English*, French, Spanish, Scottish Gaelic Studies: Catalan, Italian, German, Irish, Welsh	Message 3 of 3 11 March 2010 at 11:55am \| IP Logged
	Good explanation here. Let us know if it's not clear. 1 person has voted this message useful

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