Breakdown of Mentre aspettavo al bar, ha smesso di piovere.
il bar
the bar / cafe
di
of, from
aspettare
to wait / to wait for
a
to / at
piovere
to rain
mentre
while
smettere
to stop
Questions & Answers about Mentre aspettavo al bar, ha smesso di piovere.
Why do we use the imperfetto (aspettavo) in the first part, but the passato prossimo (ha smesso) in the second?
Mentre (while) sets up an ongoing, background action, which requires the imperfetto (the tense used for what someone "was doing"). The second action, the rain stopping (ha smesso), is a single, completed event that happened during that background action, so it takes the passato prossimo.
Why is there a di between ha smesso and piovere?
In Italian, the verb smettere (to stop or quit) requires the preposition di when it is followed by an infinitive (a verb in its basic, unconjugated form). Therefore, "to stop raining" translates to smettere di piovere.
What verb is smesso from, and why doesn't it end normally like a regular -ere verb?
Smesso is the irregular past participle of smettere. Many common verbs ending in -ere have irregular past participles (often ending in -sso or -to) that you just have to memorize, rather than following the regular -uto pattern.
Where is the word for "it" in "it stopped raining"?
Italian doesn't use a dummy subject pronoun like "it" for weather events. You simply use the third-person singular form of the verb. Ha smesso di piovere means "it stopped raining" all on its own!
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