Breakdown of A forza di ripetere la regola, l'ho assimilata.
avere
to have
la regola
the rule
la
her/it (direct object)
ripetere
to repeat
Questions & Answers about A forza di ripetere la regola, l'ho assimilata.
What exactly does a forza di mean here, and can I swap it with a furia di?
A forza di translates to "by dint of" or "from repeatedly doing something." It highlights that a result happened because an action was repeated many times. You can absolutely use a furia di here; they are completely interchangeable and both require the present infinitive (ripetere).
Why does the sentence use the past participle assimilata ending in -a instead of the default -o?
Because of the preceding direct object pronoun l', which stands for la regola (feminine singular). In the passato prossimo, when you use a direct object pronoun like lo, la, li, or le before the verb, the past participle must change its ending to agree with that pronoun's gender and number.
Could I use this exact a forza di structure if my teacher was repeating the rule, but I was the one who assimilated it?
No, you cannot. Because a forza di uses an infinitive verb (ripetere), it creates an "implicit" clause. In Italian, implicit clauses almost always require the subject of the infinitive to be exactly the same as the subject of the main clause. Here, the "I" subject is both repeating the rule and assimilating it.
Is a forza di only used when the repeated action leads to a positive outcome like learning?