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La donna si è fatta tagliare le unghie dall'estetista.

La donna si è fatta tagliare le unghie dall'estetista.
The woman had her nails cut by the beautician.
From Lesson 302:Reflexive causatives (farsi)·Italian

Questions & Answers about La donna si è fatta tagliare le unghie dall'estetista.

Why does this sentence use è instead of ha for the past tense of fare?
The verb fare usually takes the auxiliary avere. However, this sentence uses the reflexive causative structure farsi + infinitive to mean 'to have something done for oneself'. Since all reflexive verbs in Italian use essere in the past tense, the auxiliary shifts from ha to è.
Why is the past participle fatta instead of fatto?
Because the sentence uses the auxiliary verb essere, the past participle must agree in gender and number with the subject. The subject is la donna (feminine singular), so fatto becomes fatta. The second verb, tagliare, remains in the infinitive.
Why does the sentence use le unghie rather than le sue unghie for 'her nails'?
In Italian, you generally use the definite article (le) instead of a possessive adjective (le sue) when referring to body parts. The reflexive pronoun si earlier in the sentence already makes it clear whose nails are being cut.
How does dall' function in this sentence?
When you use a causative structure to say you had something done by someone else, the person who actually performs the action is introduced by the preposition da (by). Here, da combines with the article l' before estetista to form the combined preposition dall'.

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