Learn Italian: A proposito, hai realizzato il tuo sogno? - By the way, have you achieved your dream?

A proposito, hai realizzato il tuo sogno?

By the way, have you achieved your dream?

Breakdown of A proposito, hai realizzato il tuo sogno?

Questions & Answers about A proposito, hai realizzato il tuo sogno?

How does a proposito work here?

On its own at the start of a sentence, a proposito means "by the way." You will also often see it used with the preposition di (a proposito di...) when you want to say "speaking of..." or "concerning..." a specific topic.

Can I use realizzato to say "I realized I left my keys at home"?

No, realizzare is a "false friend." It usually means "to achieve," "to accomplish," or "to make real" (like making a dream come true). If you want to say "to realize" as in "to become aware of something," Italians use a different verb phrase, like rendersi conto.

Why does realizzare use avere (hai) as its helper verb instead of essere?

Realizzare is a transitive verb here, meaning it acts directly on an object (What are you achieving? The dream). Verbs that can take a direct object always use avere as their auxiliary verb in past tenses like the passato prossimo.

Why is there an il before tuo sogno? Doesn't tuo already mean "your"?

In English, we just say "your dream," but Italian almost always requires a definite article before a possessive word, so you literally say "the your dream" (il tuo sogno). The main exception to this rule is with singular close family members, like mio padre (my father), which drop the article.