Word
Se lo staff era più veloce, la fila per l'autografo non era ingestibile.
Meaning
If the staff had been faster, the line for the autograph wouldn't have been unmanageable.
Part of speech
sentence
Pronunciation
Course
Breakdown of Se lo staff era più veloce, la fila per l'autografo non era ingestibile.
essere
to be
non
not
veloce
fast
per
for / in order to / because of
Questions & Answers about Se lo staff era più veloce, la fila per l'autografo non era ingestibile.
Why does this sentence use era twice instead of the subjunctive and conditional?
This is the 'imperfetto ipotetico' (hypothetical imperfect). In spoken and informal Italian, people often replace the complex past unreal conditional structure (pluperfect subjunctive plus past conditional) with the imperfect indicative in both clauses. In formal textbook Italian, this would be Se lo staff fosse stato più veloce, la fila non sarebbe stata ingestibile, but in everyday speech, using era twice is completely natural.
Could this sentence also just mean 'If the staff used to be faster, the line wasn't unmanageable' as a statement of past fact?
Grammatically, yes. Out of context, an 'if' clause with two imperfects can simply describe a regular past habit. However, context and tone of voice usually make it obvious when it is being used as a hypothetical (what would have happened if things had been different). The extreme word ingestibile strongly hints at a specific chaotic event rather than a general habit.
Why do we use the article lo with the English loanword staff?
Foreign words imported into Italian follow standard Italian article rules based on how they sound. Because staff starts with an 's' followed by a consonant (an 'impure s'), it requires the definite article lo, just like lo studente or lo stadio. Its plural would be gli staff.
How is the word ingestibile formed?