Chloe
Question on the past historic/remote past tense. Hi I’ve been teaching myself Italian for about 5 months and would be grateful if someone could help with the following. I am trying to work out why, in an article, the passato remote of essere is used; ‘La macchina fu inventata nel 1921’ I know that ‘fu’ is the passato remote of essere. However, what I don’t understand, is why the passato remote form of ‘inventare’ was not instead used of essere– ‘inventò’ which I thought meant ‘was invented’ For example; ‘Nacque nel 1843 e mori nel 1927 = HE WAS BORN in 1843 here fu’ (essere) is not used. I’m obviously not understanding something here, and would be grateful if someone could possibly explain. Thanks Chloe
Oct 30, 2014 7:58 PM
Answers · 9
3
to understand our syntax for /nascere/, instead of /be born/, you should thing to /get life/ as a more correct translation, although we use /nascere/ in the contexts where you would use /be born/. Nacque nel 1843 e mori nel 1927 He got life in 1843 and died in 1927.
October 30, 2014
2
The first one is a passive form, the second one is not. It may be confusing because "nascere" in Italian is not passive as in English (to be born).
October 30, 2014
Because it's passive, car was invented. If it said "Wolverine invented the car", inventò would be correct.
October 30, 2014
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