Ci siamo fatti accorciare i pantaloni entro la settimana.
We had the pants shortened within the week.
Breakdown of Ci siamo fatti accorciare i pantaloni entro la settimana.
la settimana
week
i pantaloni
trousers
entro
by (time)
farsi
to have something done (to oneself)
Questions & Answers about Ci siamo fatti accorciare i pantaloni entro la settimana.
Why does this sentence use fatti accorciare instead of just saying abbiamo accorciato?
Abbiamo accorciato i pantaloni means you shortened the pants yourselves. By using the reflexive causative construction (farsi + infinitive), it changes the meaning to having someone else do it for you: "We had the pants shortened."
The verb fare normally takes avere in the past tense. Why does this sentence use siamo?
Why does the past participle end in -i (fatti)?
When using essere as the auxiliary for a reflexive verb, the past participle of fare must agree with the subject. Here, the subject is "we" (representing a masculine or mixed group), so fatto becomes fatti. If a group of all women were speaking, they would say Ci siamo fatte accorciare i pantaloni.
Why use entro for "within"? Could I use in or tra?