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- "Quanto è lungo il ponte?"
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Why is "What is the length of the bridge?" not accepted? a precise and literal translation.
Still confused - the words say "how much is long the bridge" which is not a construction I understand (yet!).
Obviously English or any other word order is not "universal" - but usually there is a sense to the structure of the sentence. Does anyone know why this sentance is constructed like this? Thx!
I think that lungo, being an adjective, has to be next to il ponte, as it describes that noun. That's the only way I can make sense of this structure. Another example is: Quanto e grosso il tuo gatto? How big is your cat? In this case, grosso is next to "il tuo gatto" as it is describing "your cat" It also helps to remember that by itself, in this sentence, quanto already means "how long" (as it can mean how big, how much) so lungo does not need to be right next to quanto. Hope that helped some!