Breakdown of Tutta la collezione è stata donata al museo.
essere
to be
il museo
the museum
a
to / at
tutto
all the / whole
la
her/it (direct object)
donare
to donate
la collezione
collection
Questions & Answers about Tutta la collezione è stata donata al museo.
Why are there two past participles, stata and donata, next to each other?
This sentence uses the passive voice in a compound tense (the passato prossimo). To form it, you use the passato prossimo of the auxiliary verb essere (è stata) followed by the past participle of the main action verb (donata).
Why do both stata and donata end in -a?
In the passive voice, every past participle must agree in gender and number with the subject of the sentence. Because the subject la collezione (the collection) is feminine singular, both the auxiliary participle stata and the main verb participle donata take the feminine singular -a ending.
Could I just say Tutta collezione instead of Tutta la collezione?
Why use al instead of just a before museo?
al is a combination of the preposition a (to) and the definite article il (the). In Italian, you generally need the definite article when referring to a specific public place like a museum, so 'to the museum' becomes al museo.
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