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Non avrei preso né l'autobus né il traghetto.

Non avrei preso né l'autobus né il traghetto.
I would have taken neither the bus nor the ferry.
From Lesson 189:The past conditional (avrei fatto, sarei andato)·Italian

Breakdown of Non avrei preso né l'autobus né il traghetto.

non
not
avere
to have
prendere
to take
l'autobus
bus
né
neither / nor
il traghetto
the ferry

Questions & Answers about Non avrei preso né l'autobus né il traghetto.

How is the past conditional formed in non avrei preso?
You form the past conditional using the present conditional of the helper verb (avere or essere) plus the past participle of the main verb. Here, avrei is the present conditional of avere (I would have) and preso is the irregular past participle of prendere (taken).
Why do we use avrei instead of sarei as the helper verb here?
The verb prendere (to take) is transitive, meaning it acts on a direct object (you take something). Transitive verbs always use avere as their helper verb in compound tenses. Since we are stating what we would have taken (l'autobus and il traghetto), we must use avrei.
Why is there a non at the start of the sentence if né ... né already means neither ... nor?
In Italian, when negative words like né ... né, mai (never), or nessuno (nobody) come after the verb, you must put a non before the verb to complete the negative structure.
Would the ending of preso change if the things I wasn't taking were feminine nouns?
No. Because the helper verb is avere, the past participle preso stays in its default -o form and does not agree with the nouns that come after it.

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