"It is a man."
Translation:È un uomo.
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I agree. "It is a man" is different from "He is a man" in that the former implies that the subject was unknown before hand. Does this not work the same way in Italian? For instance, if an object approached through a fog and I suddenly realized it was a man, would I use the masculine pronoun in Italian where I would use the neutral pronoun in English?
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Uomo is the Italian word for "man" by itself, "l'uomo" translates to "man" with a definite article: "the man" (it's "l'-" because the noun starts with a vowel, otherwise it would be "il" as in "il ragazzo") and "un uomo" is "man" with an indefinite article: "a man."
Lui means him, lo means it.. The question is about the fact that for third person singular, the verb 'essere' is 'è'. This is only for 3rd p singular so its clear you're talking about 3rd p singular, therefore a subject can and will be left out in italian (you would also say 'sono un ragazzo', without the 'io', 'am a boy'). (I) hope i was clear enough :)
In Italian (and Spanish, by the way), the subject of a sentence can be left out if it's just a pronoun or is easily understood. So while "È un uomo" only has three words, the "È" implies an understood he, she or it as the subject. It's just a quirk of the language.
Also, "Io" means "I" in English, and "è" translates to "is" (third person of be), so "lo è un uomo" translates to "I is a man". "Esso" is the Italian for "it", but it's usually left out if it's the subject of a sentence.