Breakdown of Ripassando per l'esame, abbiamo trovato un grande errore.
un
a / an (masculine)
grande
big
avere
to have
trovare
to find
per
for / in order to / because of
l'esame
the exam (m)
ripassare
to review
l'errore
the mistake (m)
Questions & Answers about Ripassando per l'esame, abbiamo trovato un grande errore.
How does the gerund ripassando connect to the rest of the sentence?
The gerund ripassando (reviewing) acts as a clause that tells us when or how the main action happened. In Italian, you can use the present gerund like this as long as the subject doing the gerund (we) is the exact same as the subject of the main clause (abbiamo trovato). It works just like saying "while reviewing..." or "upon reviewing...".
Can ripassare mean things other than studying?
Yes! While here it means "to review" or "to revise" for an exam, its literal meaning is "to pass again" (ri- + passare). You will often hear it used in daily life to mean dropping by a place again, such as ripasso più tardi (I will come by again later).
Why is the adjective grande placed before the noun errore?
Why does the main clause use the passato prossimo (abbiamo trovato) rather than the imperfetto?
The passato prossimo is used because finding the mistake was a single, completed action that happened suddenly. The gerund ripassando sets up the ongoing background scene (the equivalent of "while we were reviewing"), and abbiamo trovato is the specific event that happened during that background action.
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