Learn Italian: Marco ha spesso perso il treno. - Marco has often missed the train.

In Italian, when you use a two-part past tense (like the passato prossimo), adverbs of frequency like spesso (often), sempre (always), and mai (never) usually go right in the middle, between the helping verb (ha) and the past participle (perso).

I thought perdere meant 'to lose'. Can it also mean 'to miss'?

Yes! While perdere usually means 'to lose' (like losing your phone or keys), Italians also use it for missing a mode of transportation. So, perdere il treno means 'to miss the train'.

Is perso an irregular verb form?

Yes. Regular verbs ending in '-ere' usually have a past participle ending in '-uto' (like credere becoming creduto). However, perdere is an irregular verb, so its past participle is perso.

Why do we use ha instead of è for the past tense here?

In Italian, verbs use either avere (to have) or essere (to be) as a helping verb in the past tense. Because Marco is doing an action to a direct object (he missed the train), we use the avere form ha. Verbs that use essere are usually about movement from one place to another or a state of being (like going, arriving, or staying).