Word
Quando aveva vent'anni, lavorava già da musicista.
Meaning
When he was twenty years old, he was already working as a musician.
Part of speech
sentence
Pronunciation
Course
Breakdown of Quando aveva vent'anni, lavorava già da musicista.
l'anno
the year (m)
avere
to have
venti
twenty
quando
when
Questions & Answers about Quando aveva vent'anni, lavorava già da musicista.
Why use da musicista instead of come un musicista for "as a musician"?
The preposition da followed directly by a noun (with no article) is the standard way to express a role, profession, or phase of life in Italian. While come un musicista means "like a musician" (implying he plays like one, even if he isn't one), da musicista means he is actually working in that role.
Could I use da for his age here too, like da vent'anni?
No, da vent'anni would mean "for twenty years" (indicating how long an action has been happening). To say "when he was twenty", you must use the verb avere in the past tense: aveva vent'anni. However, you can use da for general life stages, such as da giovane (as a young man) or da bambino (as a child).
Why are both verbs in this sentence (aveva and lavorava) in the imperfect tense?
The imperfect tense (l'imperfetto) is used for descriptions and ongoing situations in the past. Having a certain age is always treated as a continuous state in Italian, so we use aveva. Similarly, lavorava shows that his work as a musician was an ongoing routine or background situation during that year, not a single, finished event.
Since the sentence drops the subject pronoun, how do we know it translates to "he"?