Breakdown of La giuria non ha creduto a quella testimonianza perché il testimone aveva mentito.
non
not
quello
that
avere
to have
perché
because, why
a
to / at
credere
to believe
mentire
to lie
la testimonianza
the testimony
il testimone
the witness
la giuria
the jury
Questions & Answers about La giuria non ha creduto a quella testimonianza perché il testimone aveva mentito.
Why do we use aveva mentito instead of the regular past tense ha mentito?
Aveva mentito is the trapassato prossimo (past perfect), which translates to "had lied". We use it here to establish the sequence of events. Because the act of lying happened before another past event—the jury not believing it (non ha creduto)—the older action gets shifted back into the trapassato prossimo.
Why is there an a after creduto? Shouldn't it just be non ha creduto quella testimonianza?
In English, you "believe someone" or "believe something," but in Italian, the verb credere usually requires the preposition a when you are believing a statement, a person, or a fact. You are literally saying the jury did not believe to that testimony.
Testimonianza and testimone look very similar. How do I tell them apart?
Mentire (to lie) doesn't take a direct object. Why does it use avere as its auxiliary verb instead of essere?
While many intransitive verbs (verbs without a direct object) use essere, verbs that describe a deliberate physical or mental action rather than a change of state or movement usually take avere. Lying is an active choice, so mentire takes avere.
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