Question 1

Why is it ha salvato and not hanno salvato if an army is made up of many people?

Accepted Answer

In Italian, collective nouns like l'esercito (the army) and l'equipaggio (the crew) are strictly singular because they refer to a single group. Even though an army consists of many soldiers, you must always use the singular form of the verb. That is why we use ha salvato (it rescued) instead of the plural hanno salvato.

Question 2

Is l'equipaggio related to the English word equipment?

Accepted Answer

They share a historical root, but l'equipaggio specifically means the crew of a ship, plane, or other vehicle. If you want to talk about physical equipment or gear in Italian, you would use words like l'attrezzatura or l'equipaggiamento.

Question 3

Could I use the imperfect tense here and say L'esercito salvava l'equipaggio?

Accepted Answer

You could, but it changes the meaning. The passato prossimo (ha salvato) shows that the rescue was a single, successfully completed event. Using the imperfect (salvava) would mean the army was in the process of rescuing the crew, describing an ongoing action in the past without telling us if they actually succeeded.

Question 4

Why do both esercito and equipaggio take the article l'?

Accepted Answer

As a quick refresher, both are masculine singular nouns that start with a vowel. In Italian, any singular noun starting with a vowel takes the shortened article l' instead of il, lo, or la to make the pronunciation flow more smoothly.

L'esercito ha salvato l'equipaggio.

Breakdown of L'esercito ha salvato l'equipaggio.

Questions & Answers about L'esercito ha salvato l'equipaggio.

Learn L'esercito ha salvato l'equipaggio and more in Italian