Past Subjunctive Tense in Italian: Congiuntivo Passato

One tense down, three to go! We have the present subjunctive under our belts, and the past subjunctive will actually be very easy, as it's a compound tense. All we do is take the auxiliary verb and put it into present subjunctive, and then follow that with the past participle, which we already know about. See?! This isn't hard at all!
Script by Patrizia Farina, Professor of Italian at Western Connecticut State University and Purchase College.
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[@lavenderpotato]

Thank you for saving my life on every Italian exam I've ever taken. Zoom university could never.

[@janebalderson9544]

Excellent - so clear. The test at the end was a humdinger!

[@ALE199-ita]

me an italian: "Hey, this guy can speak good Italian!" Also me: "Hey, cuesto tizzo parlo beni italiano"

[@ALE199-ita]

If my italian teacher saw this, she would have me dead.

[@sunethkrishantha653]

Nice explanation. Thank you verymuch.

[@RianBryan]

Thanks very much for the video

[@juliawanja8114]

Grazie mille ❤️👏👏

[@TomSFox]

0:33 - “… _passato prossimo_ uses the auxiliary verb _avere_ with transitive verbs and _essere_ with intransitives.” You are half correct. Transitive verbs take the auxiliary _avere_ , but not all intransitive verbs take the auxiliary _essere_ . _Camminare_ , _dormire_ , _parlare_ , _starnutire_ , _sudare_ , _tossire_ , and _viaggiare_ are all examples of intransitive verbs that take _avere_ as the auxiliary.

[@farinap2000]

Thank you for your comment. Unfortunately, Tom, the real reason why the above mentioned verbs take AVERE is because.... they are not...intransitives. In fact, they derive from Latin words which originally accepted a Direct Object. Ex. parabolare parabolam ( to tell... a tale = PARLARE), dormire somnium (to sleep a sleep = DORMIRE), tussire tussim (to cough a cough = TOSSIRE), sudare sudorem ( to sweat a sweat = SUDARE), vivere vitam/aetatem (to live a life = VIVERE) etc.... Therefore, even when, at later times, the Direct Object [called in Latin "internal Accusative" because is made with a word which renames the action of the verb] was dropped because considered redundant, all these verbs retained a transitive nature. Hence the use of the auxiliary AVERE. Real intransitives (andare, venire, partire, rimanere, diventare.... cannot have a direct object.

[@TomSFox]

@@farinap2000 No offense, but that appears to be a rather unorthodox view. The aforementioned verbs are, as far as I can tell, almost universally agreed to be intransitive, albeit not necessarily _exclusively_ intransitive. Your model also raises some questions. If _parlare_ is transitive because you could say, _“parabolare parabolam,”_ in Latin, does that mean that _correre_ is likewise transitive because you could say, _“currere cursum,”_ in Latin? But then why can it form the perfect tense with _essere_ ? We both seem to agree that only intransitive verbs do that. Could it be that _correre_ can be both transitive and intransitive? If so, then why can’t the same be true of the verbs I mentioned in my previous comment?

[@farinap2000]

@@TomSFox Yes, Tom, you've got it... :) It can. Ieri ho corso la maratona...but ...sono corso a casa. Some verbs dropped the internal accusative, some kept it. Many other verbs in Italian can have a double auxiliaries, but I am sure you already know that....

[@TomSFox]

@@farinap2000 So you concede that verbs that had an internal accusative in Latin can be intransitive. Then why do you insist that _camminare_ , _dormire_ , etc. aren’t?

[@fecu2394]

E' vero, non ho mai pensato che e' essere quand'e' intransitivo. Beh, se avessi pensato in quello non avrei spagliato la terza condizionale. I'm missing a good explanation on "ci", that doesn't exist in Spanish - it's unique to Italian - and I'm not clear about it. Ci frega! :)

[@ProfessorDaveExplains]

i have one on that! check out the italian playlist

[@fecu2394]

@@ProfessorDaveExplains Will do, thanks!

[@fecu2394]

@Kacper Tomasik Grazie! Some pretty sloppy errors there, I'll have to up my game! :)

[@MaestroHuff]

Perche non ensegna Francese?!? :)

[@floriansport95]

Spero che questa frase sia correta Spero che tuoi bambini non siano intimidi quando arriveranno

[@farinap2000]

Better: Spero che i tuoi bambini non siano timidi (shy) .... or intimiditi (scared, frightened) quando arrivano... (subjunctive is correct)

[@floriansport95]

Perchè Hai scritto Qualcosa in Inglese Perchè

[@farinap2000]

@@floriansport95 e` una domanda per me? la parola "intimidi" che hai scritto....non esiste. Anche la parola "correta" dovrebbe essere "corretta". Il verbo "siano" e` giusto. Sei italiano? Normalmente le persone che guardano questi video sono stranieri che vogliono imparare la lingua.

[@floriansport95]

​@@farinap2000 No, non sono un vero italiano, perché provengo dall'Alto Adige. Devo stare più attento in futuro a causa degli errori di battitura. Devo solo ampliare il mio lessico. Sto ampliando il mio lessico con KZbin e con libri Sì è una domanda per te

[@floriansport95]

@@farinap2000 No, non sono un vero italiano, perché provengo dall'Alto Adige. Devo stare più attento in futuro a causa degli errori di battitura. Devo solo ampliare il mio lessico. Sto ampliando il mio lessico con KZbin e con libri Sì è una domanda per te