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Giocavo spesso ai videogiochi.

Giocavo spesso ai videogiochi.
I often played video games.
From Lesson 105:The imperfect tense of regular verbs (-avo, -evo, -ivo)·Italian

Breakdown of Giocavo spesso ai videogiochi.

spesso
often
a
to / at
giocare
to play
il videogioco
video game

Questions & Answers about Giocavo spesso ai videogiochi.

Why use giocavo here instead of the passato prossimo (ho giocato)?
Giocavo is the imperfetto (imperfect tense) of giocare. We use the imperfetto here because the word spesso (often) tells us this was a repeated, habitual action in the past, rather than a single completed event.
Why is there an ai before videogiochi?
In Italian, the verb giocare requires the preposition a when you are talking about playing a sport or a game. Because videogiochi is a masculine plural noun, the preposition a combines with the definite article i to create the combined word ai.
Why is there an h in videogiochi?
The singular word is videogioco, which ends in a hard c sound. To keep that exact same hard sound in the plural when the ending changes to an i, Italian adds an h. Without the h, videogioci would be pronounced with a soft ch sound.
Why does spesso come after the verb?
In Italian, adverbs of frequency like spesso and sempre usually go immediately after the conjugated verb. So giocavo spesso is the most natural word order, unlike English where the adverb often comes before the verb.

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