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Se comprassimo una casa immensa, avremmo bisogno di aiuto.

Se comprassimo una casa immensa, avremmo bisogno di aiuto.
If we bought an immense house, we would need help.
From Lesson 194:The second conditional (se... + conditional)·Italian

Questions & Answers about Se comprassimo una casa immensa, avremmo bisogno di aiuto.

Why do we use comprassimo instead of a regular past tense here?
This sentence uses the second conditional to talk about a hypothetical situation. In Italian, the condition clause introduced by se (if) requires the imperfect subjunctive tense. For the noi (we) form of comprare, that becomes comprassimo.
How do I form and pronounce the noi form in the imperfect subjunctive?
For -are verbs like comprare, you take the infinitive, drop the -re, and add -ssimo, giving us comprassimo. When speaking, remember that the stress falls on the syllable right before the double S: com-PRAS-si-mo.
Is avremmo a regular conditional verb?
No, avere has an irregular stem in the conditional. A regular -ere verb would keep the vowel before the ending, but avere drops the E to become avr-. Then you add the standard noi ending -emmo to get avremmo (we would have).
Why does the sentence use avremmo bisogno di instead of a single verb for 'need'?
While Italian has a verb for 'to need' (necessitare), everyday Italian almost always uses the fixed phrase avere bisogno di (literally 'to have need of'). Because this is the hypothetical result part of the sentence, avere is conjugated in the present conditional as avremmo.

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