Learn Italian: Era pallida, come se avesse rischiato un infarto. - She was pale, as if she had risked a heart attack.

Era pallida, come se avesse rischiato un infarto.

She was pale, as if she had risked a heart attack.

Breakdown of Era pallida, come se avesse rischiato un infarto.

Questions & Answers about Era pallida, come se avesse rischiato un infarto.

Why do we use the pluperfect subjunctive (avesse rischiato) after come se in this sentence?

The phrase come se (as if) always triggers the subjunctive because it sets up an unreal scenario. We use the pluperfect subjunctive (the trapassato congiuntivo) here because the hypothetical action of risking a heart attack happened prior to the main past action (era pallida), making it a hypothetical past event.

Why use the imperfect tense (era) instead of the passato prossimo (è stata) for "she was pale"?

Era pallida describes an ongoing physical state or condition in the past. Since we are setting the scene and describing how she looked, rather than talking about a completed action with a definitive start and end, the imperfect tense is required.

Is rischiare un infarto the standard way to say "almost had a heart attack" in Italian?

Yes. While it translates literally to "to risk a heart attack," Italians commonly use the verb rischiare where English speakers would say "to almost have" a medical emergency due to a sudden shock.

Why is there no apostrophe in un infarto since the noun starts with a vowel?

Infarto is a masculine noun. The masculine indefinite article is simply un, which never takes an apostrophe. You only use an apostrophe with feminine words starting with a vowel (like un'amica) because it indicates that the final letter of una has been dropped.