Questions & Answers about Non avevo il coraggio di dire la verità.
Why is avevo used here instead of the passato prossimo, like non ho avuto?
Avevo is the imperfetto (imperfect) tense of avere. We use it here because it describes an ongoing state, feeling, or condition in the past (lacking courage over an unspecified period of time), rather than a single, completed event.
Why do we need the word di before dire?
In Italian, when a noun describing a feeling or state like coraggio (courage) or paura (fear) is followed by an action verb in its infinitive form, they are connected by the preposition di. So, the set phrase is always avere il coraggio di (to have the courage to).
Why does verità have an accent mark on the last letter?
Why isn't the subject word for 'I' (io) included in this sentence?
Just like in the present tense, Italian usually drops the subject pronoun. The -vo ending on avevo uniquely means 'I' in the imperfetto tense, so adding io is not needed unless you really want to emphasize who you are talking about.