Learn Italian: Il camion è arrivato due ore fa. - The truck arrived two hours ago.

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?

In Italian, verbs of motion that indicate moving from one destination to another (like arrivare, andare, or partire) take essere as their helping verb in compound tenses. Because it uses essere, the past participle arrivato must agree with the masculine singular subject, il camion.

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?