Learn Italian: Abbiamo visto uno scheletro di dinosauro al museo un anno fa. - We saw a dinosaur skeleton at the museum a year ago.

Abbiamo visto uno scheletro di dinosauro al museo un anno fa.

We saw a dinosaur skeleton at the museum a year ago.

Breakdown of Abbiamo visto uno scheletro di dinosauro al museo un anno fa.

a / an (masculine special)

il museo

the museum

Questions & Answers about Abbiamo visto uno scheletro di dinosauro al museo un anno fa.

How does fa work to mean "ago" in this sentence?

In Italian, fa is placed after the amount of time to mean "ago", just like in English. So, un anno fa translates exactly to "a year ago". It actually comes from the verb fare (to do/make), so it literally implies "it makes a year" since the event happened.

Why is it uno scheletro instead of un scheletro?

Because scheletro is a masculine noun that starts with an "s" followed by another consonant (s + c). In Italian, you must use uno (and the definite article lo) for these words to make the pronunciation flow smoothly.

Why do we say di dinosauro instead of di un dinosauro?

When a noun is used to describe the type or category of another noun, Italian often connects them with just di and no article. scheletro di dinosauro works just like the English compound noun "dinosaur skeleton".

Why is the past tense abbiamo visto used here instead of the imperfect tense?

Time expressions with fa (like un anno fa) point to a specific, completed moment in the past. Because seeing the skeleton was a finished event at a set time, you use the passato prossimo (abbiamo visto) rather than the imperfect tense, which is used for ongoing or repeated past actions.