An amazing guide to Italian prepositions: How to use them all

No matter how refined and beautiful a piece of cloth is, if you lack a needle and thread to sew it, it won’t make much sense. But if you sew many pieces of cloth, creating sleeves, pants, pockets, etc, and put them together, you have something that certainly makes sense: a nice suit.

Words are cloth, needle and thread are prepositions and the tailor…well, it’s grammar.

Maybe we won’t win the gold medal for world’s best metaphor - we definitely won’t - but the point is that prepositions are what connects the single elements of a sentence and assign them a function, therefore are very very very important. Moreover, and this is especially true for prepositions in Italian, they are cute! Look at them! Those tiny little words curling up in the middle of sentences like kittens, don’t you want to cuddle them?

Ok, back to serious stuff. Keep on reading to know everything you need about Italian simple and articulated prepositions, plus a complete Italian prepositions chart. Don’t forget to bookmark!

What are prepositions in grammar?

Prepositions are an invariable group of words that, once placed before a noun, pronoun, or noun phrase, clarify its function by offering a sense of direction, time, possession and others.

Mario went to Rome.

Sara and Antonio’s wedding will be in March.

This gift is for you.

Ready to embrace it all and build your grammar confidence? Andiamo!

The main Italian prepositions

Italian prepositions are divided into three groups:

1. Italian simple prepositions (called preposizioni proprie): they are very short and in most cases can merge with an article to generate an articulated form.
2. Italian articulated prepositions (called preposizioni articolate): formed by a simple preposition + an article.
3. Preposizioni improprie: they include more than one syllable and can’t merge with an article.

We’ll see the preposizioni improprie later, for now let’s focus on Italian simple prepositions and their direct descendants, Italian articulated prepositions.

Italian simple prepositions are: di, a, da, in, con, su, per, tra, fra. Want some help to remember them? Here’s a song!

Di

"Di” (pronunciation “dee”, IPA dˈi) has literally 30 different functions. But before checking out the most important ones, let’s see how it behaves when combined with articles.

When to use “di”

Di can be used to specify to whom or of whom, cause, origin, topic, agent, substance, quality, measure, motion to, from and through a place, and many others. If it sounds complicated, it’s because it is. But no worry, with the help of some examples you’ll learn!

A

The shortest preposition of all is used to form adverbial expressions, or to express motion to, Place, time, term, purpose and others. When the following word starts with a vowel, it might become ad.

When to use “a”

Now let’s see some examples of use for the preposition “a”, including its articulated forms.

Da

Da is another preposition that may be used with a wide variety of purposes. But first, let’s see how it behaves when merging with an article.

When to use “da”

Da can be used in a wide range of contexts: motion from, to and through, origin, agent, cause, time, quality, purpose, price, manner, etc.

In

A little trickier to form articulated prepositions, in is used to express place, motion to, motion through, time, substance, limitation, mean, manner, measure, purpose and others.

When to use “in”

From place to time, let’s explore some examples of using "in" as a preposition.

Con

Con is very close to the English “with” and, therefore much easier to learn. The articulated forms, here below, are not as common as with the other prepositions, and in most cases, you can simply use con + article without merging the two.

When to use “con”

This preposition, as we said, is an almost perfect translation of the English “with” and is therefore used for: company, mean, manner, quality, cause, limitation.

Su

Commonly translated with “on”, “above, “upon” and “about”, su is another versatile preposition in Italian.

When to use “su”

Now let’s list all the cases of use for su.

Per

Such as the following Italian prepositions, per does not merge with the following articles, making it’s use way simpler. It has, though, a great number of functions.

When to use “per”

Per can be used to express motion to and through, cause, purpose, time, limitation, price, distribution, finality, and many others. Let’s see the most common use cases.

Tra and fra

Tra and fra are synonyms, as they both mean “between”, “among” or “within”. They also do not merge with any following article.

When to use “tra” and “fra”

As according to their meaning, these Italian prepositions are mostly used to express place, motion through, distance, time, company.

Preposizioni improprie: what are they

Preposizioni improprie are a group of words that can function as a preposition but also as an adverb, conjunction or even adjective, depending on the word. Their exact function derives from context. A lot of words to say something that’s actually pretty common also in English. Think for example to the word “near”, that can either be a preposition, an adverb or an adjective.

• I’m near the office -> preposition
• It’s near midnight -> adverb
• I’m running to the nearest pharmacy -> adjective

Italian has A TON of them, we’ll see the most important in the following chart. Please note that some of them may moreover be paired to a simple preposition.

The complete Italian prepositions chart

You can’t get enough prepositions in your life? Check this complete Italian prepositions chart including both simple prepositions and the extremely helpful preposizioni improprie.

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