Word
Marco mi ha raccontato che era molto studioso quando aveva vent'anni.
Meaning
Marco told me that he was very studious when he was twenty years old.
Part of speech
sentence
Pronunciation
Course
Breakdown of Marco mi ha raccontato che era molto studioso quando aveva vent'anni.
essere
to be
molto
very
l'anno
the year
avere
to have
Questions & Answers about Marco mi ha raccontato che era molto studioso quando aveva vent'anni.
If Marco originally meant 'I am very studious,' why do we use era in this sentence?
This is a great example of tense backshifting in reported speech. When the reporting verb is in the past, like ha raccontato, an original present tense statement shifts a step back into the past. Marco's original thought was Sono molto studioso (I am very studious), but because it is reported in the past, the present tense sono shifts to the imperfetto form era.
In English, we can just say 'Marco told me he was very studious.' Can we drop che in Italian?
No, you cannot drop che in Italian. While English allows you to leave out the word 'that' in reported speech, Italian strictly requires che to connect the main clause (Marco mi ha raccontato) to the reported statement.
Why is it mi ha raccontato rather than ha raccontato a me?
Mi is an indirect object pronoun meaning 'to me.' While ha raccontato a me is grammatically correct, it sounds highly emphatic, as if you are stressing that he told me and not someone else. For standard statements, Italian strongly prefers placing the short pronoun mi right before the conjugated verb.
Why does the sentence use aveva vent'anni instead of a past form of essere (to be) for his age?