Breakdown of Ieri ci è piaciuta la loro fantastica compagnia.
essere
to be
loro
their
ci
to us
piacere
to please / to like
ieri
yesterday
la compagnia
the company
fantastico
fantastic
Questions & Answers about Ieri ci è piaciuta la loro fantastica compagnia.
Why is the verb è piaciuta instead of abbiamo piaciuto?
The verb piacere works backwards compared to English. Instead of "we liked the company", the Italian structure literally means "the company was pleasing to us". Because "the company" (la compagnia) is the subject doing the action, we use è (is/was). In the past tense, piacere always uses the helping verb essere (to be).
Why does piaciuta end in an "-a"?
Because the past tense of piacere is formed with the helping verb essere, its past participle (piaciuto) must change its ending to match the subject of the sentence. The subject here is la compagnia, which is feminine singular, so piaciuto becomes piaciuta. If we had liked plural feminine things, it would be sono piaciute!
How does ci mean "we" in this sentence?
The word ci is an indirect object pronoun that means "to us". Since the literal translation of the sentence is "the company was pleasing to us", ci tells us who did the liking. If the sentence was "I liked...", you would use mi ("to me") instead.
Why is there a la before loro?
In Italian, you almost always need a definite article (like il, la, i, or le) right before a possessive word to say "my", "your", "their", etc. Because compagnia is feminine singular, it takes la. Also, note that loro (their) is a unique possessive because its spelling never changes to match the noun!
Why is the adjective fantastica placed before the noun compagnia?
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