English Translation
Tom is growing a beard.
Is there a difference in meaning between Tom sta facendo crescere una barba and Tom sta crescendo una barba?
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I believe sta facendo is a regular phrase for “is making” “he’s doing” etc and this is an elegant way of saying he’s making to grow his bread. Look forward to hearing how others think🖐
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I cannot pin down the difference.
Anyway, since you cannot grow a beard actively, I would have preferred
“Tom si fa crescere la barba” or even “…si lascia …”
But I would agree with Floria7, if it would be e.g. “Tom sta facendo crescere una rosa in giardino”; it sounds to me like someone is putting time and effort in.
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Indeed, a tricky one so I’ll run it by our club madrelingua.
Edit: From our very patient madrelingua…
If you are talking about a person who did not have a beard but now wants to have one, you should say “Si sta facendo crescere la barba”. The ‘si’ is optional, but often used; the ‘la’ is preferable to the indefinite article ‘una’, because the beard is definite, being precisely “his”.
In the case of ‘barba+adjective’, the article would be different: “Si sta facendo crescere una bella barba”.
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Ciao, I’m reading a fabulous book by Lorenzo Marone, and suddenly this phrase came up.
“Ti stai facendo crescere la barba?”
Just thought I’d add it here for info. Ciao ciao!
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