Learn Italian: Ha inventato una scusa quando ha capito che ci saremmo arrabbiati. - He made up an excuse when he understood that we would get angry.

Ha inventato una scusa quando ha capito che ci saremmo arrabbiati.

He made up an excuse when he understood that we would get angry.

Breakdown of Ha inventato una scusa quando ha capito che ci saremmo arrabbiati.

Questions & Answers about Ha inventato una scusa quando ha capito che ci saremmo arrabbiati.

Why do we use the past conditional (saremmo arrabbiati) here instead of the present conditional?

This is the 'future in the past'. When you are talking about a past event ('he understood') and refer to something that was in the future at that moment ('we would get angry'), Italian requires the past conditional. English just uses 'would' plus the base verb, but Italian needs this specific compound tense.

Why is the auxiliary verb saremmo used instead of avremmo?

The verb for 'to get angry' is arrabbiarsi, which is a reflexive verb (notice the pronoun ci). In Italian, all reflexive verbs must use essere as their auxiliary in compound tenses like the past conditional.

Why does arrabbiati end with an -i?

Because the auxiliary is a form of essere, the past participle (arrabbiati) must agree with the subject in gender and number. The subject here is 'we' (indicated by ci), so it takes the plural ending -i, or -e if the group is entirely female.

Is inventare the normal way to say 'to make up' in Italian?

Yes! While it translates literally as 'to invent', inventare is the standard, everyday verb Italians use when someone makes up a lie, a story, or an excuse (una scusa).