'Sposarsi con', 'confinare con' and other verbs that need 'con'
In English you marry someone, meet someone, congratulate someone and a country borders another country. The other person or place is a plain direct object, with no preposition in front of it. In Italian, a small group of verbs links that second party with con: sposarsi con, incontrarsi con, congratularsi con, confinare con.
English speakers trip over these verbs because there is nothing in the English sentence to remind them of the preposition. So con tends to vanish, and you get sentences like mi congratulo Marco, which sound broken to an Italian ear. The fix is easy once you know which verbs are involved.
Each of these verbs describes something that happens between two parties: two people who marry or meet, two countries that share a border, one person who congratulates another. Italian treats the second party as a partner in the relationship and introduces it with con. English makes it the direct object.
- English: verb + person or place
- Italian: verb + con + person or place
Rule of thumb: if you are about to use one of these verbs and the next word is a person or a country, put con in between. Remember that con combines with the article: con il or col, con la, and so on.
Some verbs with con will feel natural to you because English uses with too. Essere d'accordo con (to agree with), andare d'accordo con (to get along with), collaborare con, litigare con and uscire con all follow the English pattern, so they rarely cause mistakes. This article focuses on the verbs where English gives you no clue.
Sposarsi means to get married, and the person you marry follows con. This is the everyday way to say who someone married.
Incontrarsi means to meet up, usually by arrangement. The friend you meet comes after con.
With congratularsi, the person you congratulate follows con, and the reason follows per.
Confinare means to border, and the neighbouring country, region or property follows con.
The typical mistake is copying the English structure: si è sposata un ragazzo, mi congratulo Marco, l'Italia confina la Francia. All of these need con.
Two of these verbs have a twin without the reflexive si, and the twin takes a direct object just like English. Sposare qualcuno and incontrare qualcuno are both correct. So ha sposato Marco and si è sposata con Marco both work, but you cannot mix them: the form with si always needs con. Note also that incontrare often means bumping into someone by chance, while incontrarsi con suggests a planned meeting.
Congratularsi has no everyday twin that takes a direct object, so it always needs con. If you just want to say congratulations, use Congratulazioni! or Complimenti!. With confinare, a direction often comes before con: a nord confina con l'Austria.
When you marry, meet up with, or congratulate someone in Italian, or when one place borders another, the second party comes after con: sposarsi con, incontrarsi con, congratularsi con, confinare con. English puts a direct object there, so train yourself to add con whenever these verbs are followed by a person or a place.