Learn Italian: Dopo essere saliti sulla ruota panoramica, abbiamo visto la città. - After getting on the Ferris wheel, we saw the city.

Dopo essere saliti sulla ruota panoramica, abbiamo visto la città.

After getting on the Ferris wheel, we saw the city.

Breakdown of Dopo essere saliti sulla ruota panoramica, abbiamo visto la città.

Questions & Answers about Dopo essere saliti sulla ruota panoramica, abbiamo visto la città.

Why is it essere saliti instead of avere saliti?

When forming the past infinitive after dopo, you use the exact same helper verb that the main verb normally uses in the past tense. Since salire (to go up / get on) is a verb of motion, it takes essere as its helper verb, not avere.

Why does the word saliti end in an -i?

Because it uses essere as its helper verb, the past participle (salito) must change its ending to match the subject. We know the subject is 'we' because the next part of the sentence is abbiamo visto (we saw). Since 'we' is plural, salito becomes the plural saliti.

Can I say dopo che siamo saliti instead of dopo essere saliti?

Yes, dopo che siamo saliti (after we got on) is perfectly correct. However, when the subject is the same for both halves of the sentence (we got on, we saw), Italian speakers love to use dopo plus the past infinitive because it is shorter and sounds very natural.

Why is sulla used before ruota panoramica?