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Ciao!
I was doing an exercise on the condizionale to refresh my memory and came across this sentence.
“Il mio fidanzato si sposerebbe subito, ma io no.”
I understand the sentence but I can’t understand the “si” in this one?
Hi Emily,
Sorry for not replying to you sooner, I’m having a busy week.
In English the verb would be ‘to get married’. If you check on wordreference.com here:
http://www.wordreference.com/enit/married
You’ll see the note ‘V rif’, which means that in Italian (but not in English) it’s a reflexive verb.
There are lots of Italian verbs which are reflexive where the English equivalent wouldn’t be. Mi lavo (I wash), Mi vesto (I get dressed), and here Mi sposo (I get married, not ‘I marry myself’, though that’s what it is literally!)
So in your example, ‘Il mio fidanzato si sposerebbe subito..’ the correct translation would be ‘would get married right away’ and the ‘si’ is used because in Italian it’s a reflexive verb.
Hope that helps!
Daniel