Expressing "Ago" with "Fa"
When talking about prehistoric events, or even just what happened last month, you will often need to say how long "ago" something occurred. In Italian, you do this using the word fa.
Just like in English, fa is placed immediately after the amount of time that has elapsed. For example, "a long time ago" becomes molto tempo fa.
| The glacial era finished a long time ago. | L'era glaciale è finita molto tempo fa. |
Millions of Years Ago
You can use fa with any unit of time, from days to millions of years. Whether you are talking about the ice age (l'era glaciale) or dinosaurs (i dinosauri), the structure remains exactly the same: [amount of time] + fa.
| The dinosaurs existed many millions of years ago. | I dinosauri sono esistiti molti milioni di anni fa. |
Time expressions with fa can be placed at the end of a sentence, or they can go at the very beginning to set the scene. When placed at the beginning, the time phrase is usually followed by a comma.
| A million years ago, this animal was not extinct. | Un milione di anni fa, questo animale non era estinto. |
Recent Discoveries
Paleontologists do a lot of digging (scavare) to find fossils and skeletons. When talking about when a recent discovery was made, you can use fa with smaller timeframes like weeks, months, or years.
| I discovered this dinosaur skeleton a month ago. | Ho scoperto questo scheletro di dinosauro un mese fa. |
| Two weeks ago, we dug in the mountain. | Due settimane fa, abbiamo scavato nella montagna. |
| Ten years ago, my brother discovered a tooth from prehistory. | Dieci anni fa, mio fratello ha scoperto un dente della preistoria. |
