Breakdown of Il camion è arrivato due ore fa.
essere
to be
due
two
arrivare
to arrive
l'ora
hour
fa
ago
il camion
the truck
Questions & Answers about Il camion è arrivato due ore fa.
Since this lesson is about the passive voice, is è arrivato a passive construction?
No, it is actually the active passato prossimo (present perfect) tense! This is a common point of confusion because both the active passato prossimo of motion verbs and the present passive voice are formed using essere + past participle. However, arrivare (to arrive) is an intransitive verb (it takes no direct object), so it cannot be made passive. This overlap is exactly why Italians often prefer using venire for the passive voice—it completely removes this ambiguity!
Why does this sentence use è instead of ha for the past tense?
Does fa always mean "ago" when talking about time?
Yes! Even though fa is normally the "he/she/it" form of the verb fare (to do/make), when it comes directly after a period of time—like due ore fa (two hours ago) or un anno fa (a year ago)—it translates to "ago". It always goes after the time phrase, just like in English.
What is the plural form of the word camion?
The plural is simply i camion. Because camion is a foreign loanword ending in a consonant, it is invariable. This means the noun itself does not change in the plural; only the definite article changes from the singular il to the plural i.
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