When do I need "io" (Italian) here?
Hello, I started learning Italian on Duolingo for fun, but now there is something that interests me a lot.
Working through the first lesson was primarily about making statements and asking questions about yourself or another person. I learned that with "(Io) sono _" or "(Io) mi chiamo _" you can say "I am…" and "My name is…".
What I noticed about this lesson, however, is that not every time one of these phrases was said was "Io," meaning "I," used before it. For reference, here is a picture of the lesson summary.
Why is that? Does it matter whether you use the pronoun before it, or is the io only necessary with a male subject?
It would be nice if someone who is already familiar with the grammar of the language could explain this to me 🙂
(2 votes)
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I.d.R. does not use “io” in this context. Of course, it would be grammatically correct, by-language (or in everyday life in general) however, it is simply left, since “mi chiamo” or “sono xy” already says about who it is, the “io” is therefore superfluous.
The pronoun is generally not used at all, because one usually recognizes who the speech is. You only learn that in the beginning so that you learn it easier. Later there is a grammatical speciality in which the pronoun has to be used, because otherwise one does not recognize who is meant in the production of the sentence, but that only comes from B2 I mean. So in principle in simple language you use the pronoun only if you want to emphasize it specifically.
In Italian, each verb form has its own ending, so it is unnecessary to use the personnel pronoun.
Unless you want to highlight a person, especially emphasize.