Breakdown of Avevo lasciato la fotocamera sul treppiede.
avere
to have
su
on, about
lasciare
to leave (an object)
la fotocamera
the camera
il treppiede
the tripod
Questions & Answers about Avevo lasciato la fotocamera sul treppiede.
How do we know avevo lasciato means "I had left" instead of "I left"?
This is the trapassato prossimo (pluperfect) tense, which you are learning now. It is formed by using the imperfect tense of the helper verb (avere becomes avevo) plus the past participle of the main verb (lasciato). It is used exactly like "had done something" in English to talk about an action that happened before another past action.
Why is it sul and not just su?
In Italian, prepositions usually combine with the definite article (the word for "the"). Sul is a combination of su (on) and il (the). Because treppiede is a masculine singular noun starting with a single consonant, it takes the article il, giving us sul.
Treppiede looks like it's made of two different words. Is it?
Could avevo lasciato also mean "he had left" or "she had left"?
No, avevo is specifically the io (I) form in the imperfect tense. For "he had left" or "she had left", you would use the third-person form of the helper verb: (lui/lei) aveva lasciato. Since the helper verb tells us who did it, we don't need to include the word io at the start of the sentence.
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