ITALIAN 102 Study Guide - Arntl
30 Oct 2014
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Document Summary
The passato prossimo is used to describe specific events in the past. It tells what happened at a given moment: ieri ho ricevuto tre lettere- yesterday i received three. The imperfetto describes habitual actions in the past: what letters used to happen: scrivevo una recensione per un giornale ogni sbato- i wrote a review for the newspaper every saturday. It also describes ongoing actions in the past; what was going on while something else was going on (two verbs in the imperfetto) or what was going on when something else happened (one verb in the imperfetto, the other in the passato prossimo) The trapassato is the equivalent of the english past perfect (i had worked, they had left). It expresses a past action that took place before another past action or point in time. The more recent past may be expressed in the passato prossimo or the imperfetto.
