Breakdown of Abbiamo capito questo messaggio.
questo
this (masculine)
avere
to have
capire
to understand
il messaggio
the message
Questions & Answers about Abbiamo capito questo messaggio.
Why does it take two words, abbiamo capito, to say "understood"?
In Italian, the past tense used most often for everyday spoken language is the passato prossimo. It's a compound tense, meaning it needs two pieces: a helper verb and a past participle. Here, the helper verb is abbiamo (we have) and the past participle is capito (understood). Literally, it means "we have understood", which translates naturally to the simple past "we understood" in English.
How is the past participle capito formed?
To form a regular past participle for Italian verbs that end in -ire (like capire, meaning "to understand"), you drop the -ire ending and replace it with -ito. This gives you capito.
Where is the word for "we" in this sentence?
In Italian, subject pronouns like noi (we) are usually left out because the verb ending already tells you who is doing the action. Since abbiamo is specifically the "we" form of avere (to have), adding noi isn't necessary unless you want to add strong emphasis (as in "We understood it, even if they didn't").
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