Learn Italian: Gli uomini sanguinavano, quindi siamo corsi all'ospedale affannati. - The men were bleeding, so we ran to the hospital breathless.

Gli uomini sanguinavano, quindi siamo corsi all'ospedale affannati.

The men were bleeding, so we ran to the hospital breathless.

Breakdown of Gli uomini sanguinavano, quindi siamo corsi all'ospedale affannati.

Questions & Answers about Gli uomini sanguinavano, quindi siamo corsi all'ospedale affannati.

Why is it siamo corsi and not abbiamo corso?

The verb correre (to run) is a manner-of-motion verb that can take either avere or essere in the past tense. Because this sentence specifies a destination (all'ospedale), the running is treated as directed motion towards a goal, so we use essere. If you were just describing the physical activity of running without a destination, you would use avere (like abbiamo corso per un'ora).

Since we used essere, how does that affect the word corsi?

Whenever a compound tense uses essere as the auxiliary verb, the past participle must agree with the subject in gender and number. Here, the subject is 'we' (a masculine or mixed group), so the participle corso changes to corsi. If the group were entirely female, it would be siamo corse.

Why use the imperfect tense for sanguinavano but the passato prossimo for siamo corsi?

This is a great example of how Italian past tenses work together. Sanguinavano (were bleeding) is the ongoing, continuous background situation. Siamo corsi (we ran) is the specific, completed action that interrupted or resulted from that background state.

Why does affannati end in -i? Does Italian use an adjective instead of an adverb here?