Italian Phrase of the Week: Che cosa vuoi che faccia? (What do you want me to do?)

I’ve chosen Che cosa vuoi che faccia? as our phrase of the week because many English speakers, when speaking Italian, find it difficult to express the idea of one person wanting another to perform an action.

Consider, for example, any of the following expressions, which follow the same grammatical pattern as today’s phrase:

• I want you to eat your dinner.
• Maria wants Mario to play the piano.
• They want me to go.

In English, the structure is relatively simple:

subject (They) + verb (want) + object (me) + infinitive verb (to go)

The problem is that English speakers tend to superimpose this structure onto Italian, leading to the erroneous production of literal translations like:

*Loro vogliono io andare (incorrect literal translation of “They want me to go”)

In Italian, you need to use the following pattern. Quite literally, you are saying “They want that I go”.

subject (loro – they) + verb (vogliono – want) + subordinating conjunction (che – that) + object (io – I) present subjunctive of verb (vada – go)

So, coming back to our original phrase of the week, it should be broken down in the following manner:

a) Che cosa

Part of speech: interrogative pronoun
Function: introduces an indirect question (“what”)
Note that it is often reduced to che or cosa alone. This means you can also say Che vuoi che faccia? and Cosa vuoi che faccia? without any change in meaning.

b) vuoi

Verb: volere (“to want”)
Form: 2nd person singular, present indicative
Function: main verb of the sentence

c) che

Part of speech: subordinating conjunction
Function: introduces a subjunctive subordinate clause expressing what you want someone else to do. Be aware that this che is not interrogative like the previous che; it’s the conjunction used with verbs of wishing, wanting, feeling, etc.

d) (io) faccia

Verb: fare (“to do, to make”)
Form: 1st person singular, present subjunctive
Function: verb of the subordinate clause
Note that I’ve included the pronoun io (I) in brackets. It has been dropped from the phrase because it is clear from the context that the speaker is referring to themselves.

Heather Broster

Heather Broster is a graduate with honours in linguistics from the University of Western Ontario. She is an aspiring polyglot, proficient in English and Italian, as well as Japanese, Welsh, and French to varying degrees of fluency. Originally from Toronto, Heather has resided in various countries, notably Italy for a period of six years. Her primary focus lies in the fields of language acquisition, education, and bilingual instruction.