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When grammar joins together in interesting ways, I like to say that they marry each other.

I think it’s romantic.

I guess you could also say that they file for domestic partnership or get a common law marriage, but for the sake of brevity, I just say that they get married.

When prepositions {di, a, da, in, con, su, per, tra/fra} meet articles {il, la, lo, le, gli, i}, they make some magic – if you know what I mean – and articulated prepositions are born.

If you’re looking to learn about simple prepositions, head on over to this article.

There are two main kinds of prepositions – simple prepositions and articulated prepositions.

Simple prepositions look like this:

– di – of
– a – to/at/in
– da – from/by
– in – in
– con – with
– su – on/over/above/about
– per – for/in order to/because
– tra – between/among
– fra – between/among

To form “le preposizioni articolate”, or articulated prepostions, you only need to use FIVE of those simple prepositions.

– di – of
– a – to/at/in
– da – from/by
– in – in
– su – on/over/above/about

The overall concept is pretty simple.

When you’re forming a sentence and the word following a preposition has an article, you combine them.

Per esempio

Uno dei miei amici – One of my friends

– di + i + miei amici = dei miei amici

Posso mangiare del pane? – Can I have some bread?

– di + il + pane = del pane

I piatti sono sul tavolo. – The plates are on the table.

– su + il + tavolo = sul tavolo

Sto leggendo un libro sulla storia della Cina. – I’m reading a book on the history of China.

– su + la + storia = sulla storia
– de + la + Cina= della Cina

Vado all’aeroporto! – I’m going to the airport.

– a + la + aeroporto = all’aeroporto*

The apostrophe is there because the letter after “all” is a vowel.

Why do they exist?

They create that harmonic melody in Italian, that easy-on-the-ear smoothness.

That’s why you should love them.

They’re probably a large part of the reason you like listening to Italian so much.

Questions? Drop ‘em in the comments below.

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