ITLN 010 Final: ITLN010 Final: 18: Imperfetto e Passato Prossimo - Imperfect and Past Tense

• School: Queen's University
• Department: Italian Language and Literature
• Course: ITLN 010
• Professor: Elena Cecchetto

Document Summary

Imperfetto e passato prossimo (imperfect and past tense) Passato prossimo and imperfetto are often used together to account past events, they express different kind of actions in the past and cannot be used interchangeably. Passato prossimo is used for specific events in the past, it tells you what happened: Ieri ho ricevuto tre lettere yesterday i received three letters. Siamo usciti alle otto we went out at eight. Passato prossimo is used to indicate a sudden change in a state of being: Avevo paura dei topi i was afraid of mice (description of mental state) Ho avuto paura quando ho visto il topo i got scared when i saw the mouse (what happened at a given moment) Imperfetto describes habitual actions in the past, what used to happen: Scrivevo una recensione per un giornale ogni sabato i used to write (wrote) a review for the newspaper every sunday.