Breakdown of C'era la guerra e mio nonno ha combattuto in Francia.
e
and
avere
to have
c'è
there is / there are
in
in / made of (material)
mio
my
il nonno
the grandfather / the grandparents (plural)
la Francia
France
la guerra
the war
combattere
to fight
Questions & Answers about C'era la guerra e mio nonno ha combattuto in Francia.
Why use c'era instead of c'è stata for 'there was'?
C'era is the imperfetto (imperfect) form of c'è (there is). We use the imperfect here because the war is the background setting of the story—it was an ongoing situation. If you used the passato prossimo (c'è stata la guerra), it would sound like you are listing a single, finished historical event rather than setting the scene for your grandfather's actions.
Why is ha combattuto in the passato prossimo while c'era is in the imperfetto?
These two past tenses work together to tell a story! The imperfetto (c'era) sets the scene by describing what was already happening ('the war was going on'), while the passato prossimo (ha combattuto) steps into the foreground to describe the specific, factual action your grandfather took against that background ('he fought').
I know c'è means 'there is', but how exactly is c'era formed?
It's a combination of ci (there) and era (he/she/it was—the imperfetto of essere). Because era starts with a vowel, the 'i' in ci is dropped and replaced with an apostrophe, giving us c'era.
Why do we use in for in Francia instead of a?
In Italian, you almost always use the preposition in for countries, continents, and large regions (like in Italia or in Europa). The preposition a (to/at) is saved for cities (like a Parigi or a Roma).
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