Learn Italian: Ho dovuto lavorare a un progetto urgente. - I had to work on an urgent project.

When using a modal verb like dovere (to have to) in the past tense, you choose the helper verb based on the action verb that follows it. Because lavorare (to work) takes avere, the modal verb borrows it, making it ho dovuto lavorare.

Why does ho dovuto translate to "I had to" instead of "I have had to"?

In spoken Italian, the passato prossimo is the go-to tense for almost all completed past actions. Even though it looks like the English "have had to" word-for-word, it's usually translated as the simple past ("I had to") because it describes a finished event.

Why does the sentence use the preposition a for "on" a project?

Prepositions rarely translate one-to-one! In English, we work "on" a project, but Italian uses a for tasks, projects, or goals. If you used su (on) here, it would sound like you were physically sitting on top of the project.

Why doesn't urgente end in -o to match the masculine noun progetto?

Adjectives that end in -e in their singular form (like urgente, intelligente, felice) don't change their ending based on gender. They are the same for both masculine and feminine nouns. They only change to -i when they become plural.