Breakdown of I miei fratelli hanno viaggiato la settimana scorsa.
il fratello
the brother
avere
to have
mio
my
la settimana
the week
Questions & Answers about I miei fratelli hanno viaggiato la settimana scorsa.
How do we form the past tense for 'they traveled' in this sentence?
The past tense (passato prossimo) is made of two parts. First, we use hanno, which is 'they have' from the helper verb avere. Then we add the past participle of viaggiare (to travel). Since viaggiare is an -are verb, we drop the -are and add -ato to get viaggiato.
Why doesn't viaggiato change its ending to match the plural fratelli?
When you use avere as your helper verb to form the past tense, the past participle is locked in. It always ends in -o, no matter if the subject is masculine, feminine, singular, or plural. So even though fratelli is plural, the verb stays viaggiato.
Why is there an i before miei fratelli? Don't we drop the article for family members?
Why does scorsa come after settimana?