Learn Italian: I videogiochi erano molto difficili. - Video games were very difficult.

I videogiochi erano molto difficili.

Video games were very difficult.

Breakdown of I videogiochi erano molto difficili.

Questions & Answers about I videogiochi erano molto difficili.

Wait, this lesson is about regular imperfect verbs. Is erano regular?

No, erano is the "they" form of essere (to be) in the imperfect tense, and essere is actually irregular. Its forms are ero, eri, era, eravamo, eravate, and erano. You will see it constantly when describing how things used to be in the past, so it's a vital exception to know alongside the regular verbs.

Why does the plural word videogiochi have an "h" in it?

The singular word is videogioco (video game). In Italian, when a noun ends in -co, we usually add an "h" before the plural -i ending to keep the hard "k" sound. Without the "h", the plural would be pronounced with a soft "ch" sound.

Since everything else is plural, why doesn't molto change to molti?

In this sentence, molto is acting as an adverb meaning "very," describing how difficult the games were. Adverbs never change their endings. If it were meant to say "many video games," it would be acting as an adjective and would change to match the noun: molti videogiochi.

Why does the adjective difficili end in -i? Is it because videogiochi is masculine?