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Ho visto un fantasma in cantina: sono spaventata.

Ho visto un fantasma in cantina: sono spaventata.
I saw a ghost in the cellar: I am scared.
From Lesson 121:Negative commands (non...)·Italian

Questions & Answers about Ho visto un fantasma in cantina: sono spaventata.

Why is it un fantasma and not una fantasma since the word ends in -a?
Fantasma is one of those tricky masculine nouns of Greek origin that end in -a. Because it is masculine, it takes the article un. In the plural, it changes to the regular masculine ending: i fantasmi.
How do we know the person speaking is a woman?
The adjective spaventata (scared) ends in -a, which tells us the speaker is female. If a man were speaking, he would use the masculine singular ending and say sono spaventato.
Why do we say in cantina instead of nella cantina?
When talking about going into or being in rooms of a house, Italian usually uses the preposition in without a definite article. You will see this with other rooms too, like in cucina (in the kitchen) or in bagno (in the bathroom).
Visto doesn't look like a regular past tense verb. What is its infinitive form?
Visto is the irregular past participle of vedere (to see). Instead of a regular ending like -uto, it changes completely, which is why we say ho visto (I saw / I have seen).

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