"I did not understand her either."

Translation: Pure io non l'ho capita.

[Shirin-Rose]

I'm a little confused about when the endings of the past participle change and why. I used capito instead of capita and got it wrong.

[Koolkaren]

I suspect (this is just a guess) that Italian is like French in this respect. The past participles of verbs that use the auxiliary 'essere' agree in number and gender with the subject, for example 'lei è venuta'. The past participles of verbs that use the auxiliary 'avere' do not agree with the suject, as in 'lei ha visto'. However, these 'avere' verbs DO agree with an object pronoun. So, in this question, the fact the the past participle is 'capita' rather than 'capito' shows that what was 'understood' was feminine and singular. In French, this only happens if the object pronoun comes before the verb. I don't know what the rules about this are in Italian. Any more proficient Italian speakers out there care to weigh in? :)

[rljones]

General rule is that participles of an avere verb agree with the direct object. Participles of essere verbs (and that includes reflexives) agree with the subject.

[JessRenee]

It comes from the "la" before "ho capito". Endings of past participles agree with the subject only when using essere verbs. However, because the "a" is lost due to combining the "la" with the "ho", the a is transplanted to the end of the verb following.
If it were him, it would be "l'ho capito", but because it's her it is la ho capito = "l'ho capita"
It's how you can tell the gender of the subject. Hope that helps

[MikeFen]

What's the difference between neanche and neanch'io? I used neanche and got it wrong.

[Koolkaren]

Why does it require 'io' here? Is it because of the 'pure'? I put 'Pure non l'ho capita' and it said that I am missing a word, 'io'. Up until now, the 'io' has been optional.

[marziotta]

Maybe considering "io" as connected to "pure", instead of to the rest of the sentence, can make things easier.

You can find an explanation on the topic, for "anche", that is probably a perfect synonym for "pure", that is used more often.

http://ilgur.com/tag/anche/

[Koolkaren]

Grazie. :)

[SeamusCoon]

that link doesn't work now (May '14)

[rljones]

Here we have another ambiguous sentence. It could mean "I, like you, did not understand her" or "I did not understand her just as I didn't understand him." The given translation has selected the first of these meanings. (That's why the "io" is there--roughly "neither me.")

My question is how the second of those meanings would be correctly translated. I am sure only that it would be somewhat different. I would guess at "Non l'ho capita, neanche lei." Does this work?

[Lynnich]

Is this correct?
pure; also
io non l'ho; I have not
capita; understood (her)
I am having trouble thinking like an Italian- it's not very straight forward is it???

[silkwarrior]

Apologies for doubtless stupid question, but why can't you use "anche"

as in:

"Non l'ho capita anche"

The wordref listing for anche seemed to fit