Learn Italian: Questo festival è stato veramente fantastico!

Questo festival è stato veramente fantastico!

This festival was really fantastic!

Breakdown of Questo festival è stato veramente fantastico!

Questions & Answers about Questo festival è stato veramente fantastico!

How do we know that festival is a masculine noun?

Festival is a foreign loanword. In Italian, borrowed words that end in a consonant are almost always treated as masculine. That is why it uses the masculine word for 'this' (questo) and the masculine adjective fantastico.

Why use è stato for 'was' instead of era?

È stato is the passato prossimo tense, used here because the festival is viewed as a specific, completed event. You would use era (the imperfect tense) if you were describing an ongoing background situation, like 'The weather was fantastic while we were at the festival.' Also, remember that the verb essere (to be) takes itself as a helper verb in the past tense!

How does this sentence relate to the past tense of piacere (to like) from this lesson?

If you wanted to say 'I liked this festival', you would say Questo festival mi è piaciuto! Notice that both essere (to be) and piacere (to like) use the helper verb essere in the past tense. Because festival is masculine and singular, the past participle ends in '-o' (piaciuto).

What happens if we make this sentence plural?