Learn Italian: Vedemmo il dio, quindi dicemmo la verità. - We saw the god, therefore we told the truth.

Vedemmo il dio, quindi dicemmo la verità.

We saw the god, therefore we told the truth.

Breakdown of Vedemmo il dio, quindi dicemmo la verità.

Questions & Answers about Vedemmo il dio, quindi dicemmo la verità.

Is vedere entirely irregular in the passato remoto? How do we get vedemmo?

While vedere has highly irregular forms in this tense like vidi (I saw) and vide (he/she saw), the noi and voi forms follow the regular pattern. You just add the standard endings to the stem ved- to get vedemmo and vedeste.

Why does dicemmo have a 'c' in it when the infinitive is dire?

The verb dire comes from the older Latin word dicere. In the passato remoto, the tu, noi, and voi forms use this old stem dic- and add regular endings, giving us dicesti, dicemmo, and diceste. The other forms use the irregular stem diss- (like dissi for I said).

Both vedemmo and dicemmo end in -emmo. Is that ending standard?

Yes! The -emmo ending is the standard passato remoto ending for the noi form of -ere verbs. A great trick to remember is that even when an -ere verb is highly irregular in the passato remoto, its noi form almost always acts perfectly regular.

I learned earlier that the plural of god is gli dei. Why does the singular use il instead of lo?