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Sono arrivati quattro furgoni e ne abbiamo svuotati due.

Sono arrivati quattro furgoni e ne abbiamo svuotati due.
Four vans arrived and we emptied two of them.
From Lesson 151:Past agreement with 'ne' (ne ho presi)·Italian

Questions & Answers about Sono arrivati quattro furgoni e ne abbiamo svuotati due.

Why does svuotati end in -i if it uses the helping verb avere?
Normally, verbs that use avere in the past tense don't change their endings. However, when you use the pronoun ne (meaning "of them"), the past participle must agree with the thing you are counting. Since furgoni (vans) is masculine plural, svuotato changes to svuotati.
What exactly does svuotati agree with here?
It agrees with the specific quantity mentioned. The pronoun ne stands in for "vans", and the number due tells us how many. Because "two vans" is masculine plural, we use the masculine plural ending -i. If we had only emptied one, it would be ne abbiamo svuotato uno.
Why is the subject at the end of the first part (Sono arrivati quattro furgoni)?
In English, we almost always put the subject first ("Four vans arrived"). In Italian, when using verbs that take essere to describe an arrival or something coming into view, it is very natural to flip the order and put the subject after the verb.
Why does the sentence switch from using essere to avere?
The first verb is arrivare (to arrive). It is a verb of motion, so it requires essere (sono) as its helping verb. The second verb is svuotare (to empty). Because you are emptying something (it has a direct object), it requires avere (abbiamo).

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