I'm a little bit confused about these past tenses in Italian but if I understood right what is an imperfect in English (and Finnish), it is most likely some kind of "perfect" in Italian and when some thing isn't finished yet, it is your "imperfect"

I have an example:

I ate an apple FIN: söin omenan (it is over and finished): (io) ho mangiato una mela

BUT I ate many apples FIN: söin paljon omenia (it is not finished yet) (io) mangiavo molte mele

Grazie molto!

Risposte

MassyItaliano33

29 gen

Italiano

Ciao!
Yeah, I get you, these kind of grammar questions can be mindboggling!

So, let's see your examples:

"Ho mangiato una mela"
litreally menas "I have eaten an apple". In Italian that measn that the action is concluded and it was done in the recent past.

"A colazione ho mangiato una mela"
"Per pranzo ho mangiato un piatto di pasta"

"Mangiavo una mela" is translated as "I was eating an apple" so it would be a pst progressive form.
It measn that the action was ongoing, at some point, in the past.
For example:

"Luigi mi ha chiamato mentre mangiavo una mela"
"Stavo mangiando una mela quando mi hai chiamato"

I hope this is helpful to you!
Let me know if you need more details! :)

Massy

Vadelmamuffini

29 gen

Finlandese

Grazie but unfortunately I still didn't understand :D I guess you don't Finnisg(?) so you couldn't tell me the differences and tell me how we Finns would say it. But let's try this way. Do you think so that those your "perfect" (avere + verb) is most common and in English it is an imperfect (same in Finnish) ? To me, the past tenses of English language wasn't hard to me to understand because I think it has the same idea as we Finns think. However, in Italian language there is (at least in my opinion) a major difference. But I want to learn and I won't give up! :)

I love your language, I think it's beautiful and it is my second favourite (foreign language) after English :) (Finnish is the best of course :D )