{"id":2217,"date":"2012-08-20T07:00:00","date_gmt":"2012-08-20T07:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/italian\/?p=2217"},"modified":"2012-08-19T18:50:22","modified_gmt":"2012-08-19T18:50:22","slug":"talking-about-the-past","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/italian\/talking-about-the-past\/","title":{"rendered":"Talking About The Past"},"content":{"rendered":"

Here\u2019s a brief description of a morning walk. It highlights some grammatical points which will help you when talking about things that happened in the past. Each sentence is translated into English, and for the text in blue<\/font> we have given a grammatical explanation. Words in red<\/font> are links to old posts.<\/p>\n

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1. Oggi ci siamo svegliati<\/span> un po\u2019 tardi, perci\u00f2 abbiamo deciso che<\/span> sarebbe stato <\/span>meglio<\/span> fare una passeggiata breve prima che facesse<\/span> troppo caldo.<\/strong><\/p>\n

We woke up a bit late today, so we decided that it would be better to go for a short walk before it got too hot.<\/p>\n

ci siamo svegliati<\/strong><\/span> = we woke up: Passato Prossimo (Present Perfect), first person plural, masculine, of the reflexive verb svegliarsi<\/strong>. The passato prossimo of reflexive verbs<\/span><\/a> is always constructed with the auxiliary verb essere.<\/strong><\/p>\n

abbiamo deciso<\/strong> <\/span>= we decided: Passato Prossimo (Present Perfect), first person plural of the verb decidere<\/strong>. The passato prossimo of transitive verbs<\/span><\/a> is always constructed with the auxiliary verb avere<\/strong>.<\/span><\/p>\n

sarebbe stato<\/span><\/strong> = it would be: Past Conditional, third person singular of the verb essere<\/strong>. Whereas in English you say \u2018it would be\u2019 in Italian we say \u2018it would have been\u2019.<\/p>\n

facesse<\/strong><\/span> = it got: Imperfect Subjunctive, third person singular of the verb fare<\/strong>. <\/strong>Prima che<\/strong> <\/span><\/span>is always followed by the subjunctive, either present when talking about the present or the future, or imperfect when talking about the past. When talking about the weather we often use the verb fare<\/strong> with the meaning of \u2018to be\u2019.<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

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2. Da casa nostra ci sono diverse possibilit\u00e0, e abbiamo scelto<\/span>  il giro pi\u00f9 ombreggiato.<\/strong><\/p>\n

From our house there are various possibilities, and we chose the shadiest route<\/p>\n

abbiamo scelto<\/strong><\/span> = we chose: Passato Prossimo (Present Perfect), first person plural of the verb scegliere<\/strong>, a transitive verb.<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

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3.<\/span> \u00c8 sempre<\/span> stata<\/span> una delle nostre passeggiate preferite quando non ce la sentiamo di fare troppo sforzo. <\/strong><\/p>\n

It\u2019s always been one of our favourite walks when we don\u2019t feel like making too much effort.<\/p>\n

\u00c8 sempre<\/span> stata<\/strong><\/span> = It\u2019s always been: Passato Prossimo (Present Perfect), third person singular of the verb essere<\/strong>. It\u2019s in the feminine form because refers to una passeggiata <\/strong>(a walk).<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

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4. Infatti gi\u00e0 alle nove del mattino faceva<\/span> un caldo da morire<\/span>, e quando siamo arrivati<\/span> gi\u00f9 al fiume eravamo <\/span>contentissimi <\/span>perch\u00e9 l\u00ec fa sempre bello fresco.<\/strong><\/p>\n

In fact, it was already terribly hot at nine in the morning, and when we arrived down at the river we were really  pleased because it\u2019s always lovely and fresh.<\/p>\n

faceva<\/strong><\/span> = it was: Imperfect tense, third person singular of the verb fare<\/strong>. We use the imperfect tense because the heat is an on-going factor, not an action.<\/span><\/p>\n

siamo arrivati<\/strong><\/span> = we arrived: Passato Prossimo (Present Perfect), first person plural, masculine, of the verb arrivare<\/strong>, which, like many (but not all!) verbs of movement<\/span><\/a>, is constructed with the auxiliary essere<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

eravamo<\/strong> <\/span>= we were: Imperfect tense, first person plural of the verb essere<\/strong>. In the past we normally use the imperfect tense to express feelings and emotions, e.g. eravamo <\/strong><\/span>contentissimi.<\/strong><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

<\/strong><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

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5. In questa maniera ci siamo illusi<\/span> di<\/span> aver fatto<\/span> un po\u2019 di esercizio. Dopo la passeggiata, siamo tornati <\/span>a fare i pigri<\/span>, che \u00e8 l\u2019unica cosa che si pu\u00f2 fare in questo caldo torrido.<\/strong><\/p>\n

In this way we fooled ourselves that we\u2019d done a bit of exercise. After the walk we went back to being lazy again, which is the only thing you can do in this torrid heat.<\/p>\n

ci siamo illusi<\/strong><\/span> = we fooled ourselves: Passato Prossimo (Present Perfect), first person plural, masculine, of the reflexive verb illudersi<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

aver fatto<\/strong><\/span> = to have done: Past infinitive of the verb fare<\/strong>. As both actions of illudersi <\/strong>(fooling oneself) and fare un po\u2019 di esercizio <\/strong>(doing a bit of exercise) are done by the same person, in this case noi <\/strong>(we), in Italian we use the construction di<\/u> + infinito<\/strong>, e.g. ci siamo illusi<\/span> di<\/u><\/span> aver fatto<\/span> un po\u2019 di esercizio<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

siamo tornati<\/strong> <\/span>= we went back: Passato Prossimo (Present Perfect), first person plural, masculine, of the verb of movement tornare<\/strong>.<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Here\u2019s a brief description of a morning walk. It highlights some grammatical points which will help you when talking about things that happened in the past. Each sentence is translated into English, and for the text in blue we have given a grammatical explanation. Words in red are links to old posts. 1. Oggi ci…<\/p>\n

Continue Reading<\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"author":19,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"content-type":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[720,741,839],"class_list":["post-2217","post","type-post","status-publish","hentry","category-grammar","tag-imperfetto","tag-italian-past-tenses","tag-passato-prossimo"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/italian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2217","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/italian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/italian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/italian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/19"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/italian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2217"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/italian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2217\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2221,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/italian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2217\/revisions\/2221"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/italian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2217"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/italian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2217"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/italian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2217"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}