Learn Italian: Lo studente aveva scritto una tesi lunga. - The student had written a long thesis.

Lo studente aveva scritto una tesi lunga.

The student had written a long thesis.

Breakdown of Lo studente aveva scritto una tesi lunga.

Questions & Answers about Lo studente aveva scritto una tesi lunga.

Why does tesi end in -i if it is a feminine singular noun?

Tesi belongs to a special group of nouns of Greek origin. In Italian, many of these words ending in -i (like crisi, analisi, and tesi) are feminine. They are also invariable, meaning the noun itself doesn't change in the plural. You can tell it is singular here because it uses the article una.

How do we know tesi is feminine and singular just by looking at the rest of the sentence?

You can look at the words agreeing with it! The indefinite article una is feminine singular, and the adjective lunga (long) ends in -a, which is the standard feminine singular ending. If it were plural ('long theses'), it would be le tesi lunghe.

What tense is aveva scritto and how is it formed?

This is the trapassato prossimo (past perfect), which translates to 'had written'. We use it to talk about an action that happened further in the past than another past action. It is built by using the imperfetto (imperfect) form of the helper verb avere (aveva) plus the past participle of scrivere, which is irregular (scritto).

Why do we use the article lo for studente instead of il?