Breakdown of Il lupo si faceva il bagno nel lago.
il lago
the lake
nel
in the (in + il) / while / upon (doing something)
si
himself, herself, themselves (reflexive)
il lupo
the wolf
fare il bagno
to take a bath, to have a swim
Questions & Answers about Il lupo si faceva il bagno nel lago.
I thought the imperfetto simply drops the endings from the infinitive. Why is it faceva instead of "fava"?
Fare is an irregular verb in the imperfetto tense. Instead of using its modern infinitive, it uses its older Latin stem, face-. To conjugate it, you just add the regular imperfetto endings to that stem: facevo, facevi, faceva, facevamo, facevate, facevano.
Why is there a si before faceva? The English translation doesn't say "the wolf bathed himself."
Could I use the passato prossimo here and say il lupo si è fatto il bagno?
You could, but it changes the feeling of the story. Using the imperfetto (si faceva) sets a background scene or describes an ongoing action in the past, like "the wolf was taking a bath." Using the passato prossimo (si è fatto) sounds like a single, completed event on a timeline: "the wolf took a bath (and then got out)."
Why is it nel lago instead of in il lago?
Whenever the preposition in (in) sits right next to the definite article il (the), they must combine into the single word nel. Italian requires you to merge these small words so the sentence flows more smoothly when spoken.
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