Elision — Italian Grammar

Italian dislikes two vowels meeting across a word boundary. A short word ending in a vowel drops it before a word beginning with one, and an apostrophe marks the missing letter. Nothing comes between the apostrophe and the next word.

Com'è il tempo oggi?
What is the weather like today?
Dov'è il gatto?
Where is the cat?

The Words It Happens To

A handful of very common words elide regularly: , and before , in , the articles , and , and the object pronouns and .

Cos'è quella cosa dietro di te?
What is that thing behind you?
C'è qualche problema?
Is there a problem?
Non l'ho visto.
I have not seen him.
Quant'è?
How much is it?

When the Apostrophe Stays Away

Masculine ends in a consonant already and never takes one: beside feminine . The word loses its vowel before with no apostrophe at all.

Qual è il tuo numero?
What is your number?

In the course

Sentences from Lingora’s Italian course

70 of the course's 500 sentences use this, the first in lesson 11. A few of them, with the words “Elision” is about in bold:

Quest'acqua è fredda. Quell'acqua è calda.
This water is cold. That water is hot.
Lesson 68
Lei ha un'auto lenta ed economica.
She has a slow, cheap car.
Lesson 110
Dov'è nostra figlia? - È a scuola.
Where is our daughter? - She's at school.
Lesson 242

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