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Chapter 12 of 16 · Explore the Italian path

Verbs and stories · Chapter 12 of 16

The passato remoto: the past fables are printed in, and who said it

Fables use a past you rarely hear spoken. No new words, only new shapes of verbs you already have: saw, said, asked, answered, fell. Then how a story tags who spoke.

≈ 4 min of reading · Practise at your own pace

What’s in this chapter
  • Fables are printed in the passato remoto, a past rarely heard in conversation.
  • No new vocabulary — only new shapes of verbs you already have. Recognise them; you never have to produce them.
  • Regular shapes are accented; the commonest verbs are short and doubled: venne, disse, cadde.
  • vide moves the story forward a step; era holds it still and describes.
  • In a speech tag the verb comes before the speaker: disse la volpe — and speech opens with « » or a dash.

This is the most useful section on the path for reading. One guess before you look: vede is “he sees”, and the story column below has videVEE-deh, one letter away. What do you think it means?

Now, and in a story

The same doing word is written one way in speech and another way in a story. Read across each row and let the third column become familiar by sight.

EnglishHappening nowIn a story
isèfufoo
comesvienevenneVEHN-neh
seesvedevideVEE-deh
saysdicedisseDEES-seh
askschiedechieseKYEH-zeh
answersrisponderisposeree-SPOH-zeh
fallscadecaddeKAHD-deh

Read the third column twice: recognising it beats any rule about how it is built. The past a beginner course teaches for speaking — ha detto — is what Italians say; it is simply not the one printed in fables.

What a story-past word looks like

Two habits cover most of them. Regular ones end in an accented letter, and the commonest ones come out short with a doubled letter.

volare“to fly”
volòvoh-LOH
-are verbs end in accented -ò: andò“went”
dormire“to sleep”
dormìdor-MEE
-ire verbs end in accented -ì
vede · cade
vide · cadde
The commonest verbs are short and doubled — a short doubled word mid-story is almost always one of these.

The other past, for how things were

This second past describes rather than moving the story along. Meet these before the reading, because a fable page uses both pasts together.

eraEH-rah · avevaah-VEH-vah
was · had
One heuristic tells the two pasts apart: vide moves the story forward a step; era holds it still and describes. Every page of a fable has both.
si chiamavasee kyah-MAH-vah
was called
how a fable introduces a character

Five joining words

Five short words that turn up constantly in a story. Knowing them by sight keeps a long line moving.

EnglishItalianSounds like
andeeh
butmamah
verymoltoMOHL-toh
noworaOH-rah
one dayun giornooon JOR-noh

For “because”, Italian reuses perché — the “why” you have, now answering instead of asking.

“Good morning,” said the fox.

«Buongiorno», disse la volpe.

bwohn-JOR-noh, DEES-seh lah VOHL-peh

disse“said” comes before la volpe — an Italian story almost always tags speech this way, and narration often puts the verb first too: venne il vento“the wind came”. The characters themselves speak in the present. And every fairy tale opens C'era una volta…CHEH-rah OO-nah VOHL-tah“once upon a time” — the era from above with a small word welded on.

Moving, or describing

  1. La volpe vide un uccello.

    One letter from vede.

    Show answer +
    La volpe vide un uccello.lah VOHL-peh VEE-deh oon oot-CHEHL-loh“The fox saw a bird”
  2. L'albero cadde.

    Short and doubled.

    Show answer +
    L'albero cadde.LAHL-beh-roh KAHD-deh“The tree fell”
  3. Tika era triste.

    Holds the story still.

    Show answer +
    Tika era triste.TEE-kah EH-rah TREE-steh“Tika was sad”
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