Learn Italian: I gatti sono scappati dal giardino. - The cats ran away from the garden.

I gatti sono scappati dal giardino.

The cats ran away from the garden.

Breakdown of I gatti sono scappati dal giardino.

from, at (someone's place) / by (oneself), on one's own

il giardino

the garden

Questions & Answers about I gatti sono scappati dal giardino.

Why does the sentence use sono (are) instead of hanno (have) to mean "ran"?

In Italian, the past tense (passato prossimo) is usually formed with avere (to have). However, verbs that describe movement from one place to another, like scappare (to run away or escape), use essere (to be) as their helping verb. So, Italians literally say "The cats are run away."

Why does scappati end in -i?

When you use essere as the helping verb in the past tense, the past participle (the action word) must match the subject in gender and number. Since i gatti is masculine plural, the default dictionary ending -o changes to -i.

If I were talking about female cats, how would the sentence change?

The sentence would be: Le gatte sono scappate dal giardino. The subject becomes feminine plural (le gatte), and because we are using the helping verb essere, the ending of the past participle must also change to match the feminine plural (scappate).

Why is it dal giardino instead of da il giardino?

In Italian, when the preposition da (from) is followed by the definite article il (the), they are forced to combine into a single word. Da + il always becomes the combined preposition dal.