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Sapevo che il suo atteggiamento era pessimo.

Sapevo che il suo atteggiamento era pessimo.
I knew that his attitude was terrible.
From Lesson 146:Forms of 'good' (buon, buono, buona)·Italian

Questions & Answers about Sapevo che il suo atteggiamento era pessimo.

What is the word pessimo and how does it relate to adjectives like buono and cattivo?
Pessimo means 'very bad' or 'terrible'. It is the irregular superlative of cattivo (bad). Just like buono (good) has the special 'very good' form ottimo, cattivo has pessimo. You use it instead of saying molto cattivo.
If the lesson is about buono, how would we say 'a good attitude' using the phonetic rules we are learning?
If you wanted to say 'a good attitude', you would say un buon atteggiamento. Because atteggiamento is a masculine noun starting with a vowel, you drop the final 'o' and use the shortened form buon without an apostrophe.
Why are sapevo and era in the imperfect tense rather than the passato prossimo?
The imperfect tense is used for ongoing states or descriptions in the past. Knowing something (sapevo) and an attitude being terrible (era) describe ongoing conditions in the past, rather than single, completed events with a clear start and end.
Does il suo specifically mean 'his' in Italian?
It can mean 'his', 'her', or even formal 'your'. In Italian, possessives like suo agree with the gender of the thing owned, not the owner. Because atteggiamento is a masculine noun, it must be il suo atteggiamento regardless of whose attitude it is.

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