Italian Prepositions: di, a, da, in, con, su, per, tra

Italian runs on eight small words. Di, a, da, in, con, su, per and tra turn up in nearly every sentence, and between them they cover most of what English spreads across of, to, at, from, in, on, with, for, by, between and more. The difficulty is not learning eight meanings. It is that the two languages carve up the same space differently, so the preposition English would use is often not the one Italian picks, and sometimes Italian uses one where English has none at all, or none where English insists on one.

The eight Italian prepositions at a glance

Italian schoolchildren chant them in exactly this order, di a da in con su per tra fra, and it is not a bad way to hold the set in your head. The detail is in what each one covers.

Di: of, and a great deal else

Di is the preposition of belonging and description. Italian has no apostrophe-s, so every possessive relationship between nouns goes through it: il libro di mia sorella is literally the book of my sister.

It also marks what something is about or made of. Before an infinitive it often has no English equivalent at all.

A: to and at, for cities and people

A means both to and at, so motion and location share a word. English says in London; Italian says a, because the rule for places is by size: cities and towns take a, countries take in.

Da: from, and at someone's place

Da is the starting point: Vengo da Londra, I've come from London. The contrast with di is worth fixing early, because both translate as from when you talk about where people are from. Sono di Londra says London is your home town. Vengo da Londra can mean the same, but it can also simply mean you have travelled from there today.

Three further uses of da have no neat English equivalent:

Where French says chez, Italian says da. And in the second row Italian keeps the present tense because the working is still going on.

In: countries, rooms and transport

In is the other half of the place rule. Countries, regions, continents, rooms, and many buildings and shops take in (though not all: it is a scuola, al cinema, al bar). Like a, it covers motion too.

Put the two place rules together and you get Vado in ufficio in macchina, I go to the office by car, with in doing two different jobs in one breath.

Con, su, per and tra

These four are the friendly ones, because they mostly line up with English.

Con covers every sense English with has: company, instrument, manner, and Con piacere is worth having ready from the first week. Per also means through and in order to. Tra and fra are interchangeable, and Italians choose by sound, which is why you hear fra tre giorni rather than a clumsy tra tre.

When a preposition meets an article

Five of the eight, di, a, da, in and su, fuse with a following definite article into a single word. Di plus il is del, in plus la is nella, su plus il is sul, and it happens every time, not as an option:

• Il libro è sul tavolo. - The book is on the table.
• Vado dal dottore. - I'm going to the doctor's.

Con has two fused forms still common in speech, col and coi (col treno, by train), but writing mostly keeps it separate, and per and tra never fuse in modern Italian. The full table, and the reason the l doubles, is in Italian articulated prepositions, the next step after this page.

Pronouns after a preposition

After any preposition, Italian uses the stressed pronouns: me, te, lui, lei, noi, voi, loro. Only the first two differ from the subject pronouns, so per me and con te, never per io or con tu. Penso a te, I'm thinking about you.

Where English and Italian disagree

The words themselves are easy. What catches people is the verbs, because a verb's preposition is part of the verb and does not translate.

English uses a preposition, Italian does not. Four everyday verbs take a direct object in Italian:

Aspetto per il treno is wrong in the way I await for the train is wrong in English. The for is already inside the verb.

Italian uses a preposition where English does not.

There is no rule that predicts these. Learn each verb with its preposition as a unit, the way you learn a noun with its article.

Mistakes English speakers make

What to practise

1. The chant: di a da in con su per tra fra, until the set comes out in one breath.
2. Your own life: where you live, where you work, how you get there, who you go out with, said aloud until a Londra and in macchina stop needing thought.
3. Next steps: the articulated prepositions, which are these same eight words fused with the articles, then the Italian course to drill them on real sentences.