Learn Italian: Oggi ho scritto tre pagine. - I wrote three pages today.

Oggi ho scritto tre pagine.

I wrote three pages today.

Breakdown of Oggi ho scritto tre pagine.

Questions & Answers about Oggi ho scritto tre pagine.

Why is the word for "written" scritto instead of a regular ending like "scrivuto"?

Scritto is the irregular past participle of scrivere (to write). In Italian, many very common verbs have irregular past participles that don't follow the normal -ato, -uto, or -ito patterns, so they just have to be memorized.

The translation says "I wrote", but doesn't ho scritto literally mean "I have written"?

Yes, exactly! Italian uses this tense for almost all completed past actions in everyday conversation. Because of this, ho scritto can translate to either "I wrote" or "I have written" depending on what sounds most natural in English.

Why does the word for pages, pagine, end in -e?

In Italian, feminine words that end in -a in the singular change their ending to -e in the plural. Since "page" is una pagina, "three pages" becomes tre pagine.

Why isn't there an io (I) at the beginning of the sentence?

In Italian, you can usually drop the subject pronoun (like io) because the verb itself tells you who is doing the action. The verb ho can only ever mean "I have", so saying io ho scritto is unnecessary unless you really want to emphasize that you did it, rather than someone else.