"We had understood one another."
Translation:Ci eravamo capiti.
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1272
I suspect that here, as in French with 'avoir' and 'être', you always use 'essere' with reflexive verbs. That's my best guess. :)
It's reflexive, then essere should be used. Abbiamo capito is not, then the suffix doesn't adapt to plural, like it always does with essere.
I agree - capire takes avere in itself, but when used as a reflexive verb it takes essere and the ending must agree with the object. So here the "i" on capiti is needed because "ci" is the object and it is plural.
- 153
When a verb takes "essere" as the helping verb in the past tense, the past participle (capito) has to agree with the subject (we) in gender and number. If it is a group of all females, the answer can be "ci eravamo capite", and if there is a male in the group, it's "ci eravamo capiti".
Good explanation here on "Choosing The Auxiliary Verb in Italian". http://italian.about.com/od/verbs/a/italian-verbs-auxiliary.htm Since "Understand" is an Intransitive verb, it takes Essere, not Avere.
- 1272
In English, 'understand' is not an intransitive verb (in other words, it can take a direct object, as in "I understand it"). I believe that this is also true in Italian. Therefore, I think it generally uses the auxilliary 'avere', as in "Ho capito". The reason it uses 'essere' here is because in this sentence it is reflexive. If I have misunderstood this, I hope someone more fluent in Italian than I will be kind enough to correct me. :)
You are absolutely correct, Understand is a transitive verb in both English and Italian. Your explanation seems correct, but I'm no expert. No sooner do I think I'm understanding the grammar I get confused again!
- 153
Not fluent, but that's correct. The verb here is the reflexive verb "capirsi" which means "to understand each other", and all reflexive verbs take "essere".
I'm not fluent, but my guess is that since the sentence is "we understand each other", the verb became reflexive (in the group of "we").
- 1403
Thank you. I'm struggling big time with this set and your answer helps with a small step forward...
But we have: "Hai capito?" or "Avete capito?", answer "Ho capito" or "Abbiamo capito". So apparently the rule goes to the reflexive: "understand each other"
"Ci eravamo capiti a vicenda" why is wrong? "A vicenda" is the actual translation of "One another"
maybe the "ci" already encodes "one another", so "a vicenda" is redundant?
Yes, exactly. If you use "ci" you shouldn't repeat "a vicenda" or other expression with the same meaning.
- 1499
In the "Sei Tu La Mia Stella" book by Alice Vezzani there is the sentence "Ero contenta, ci eravamo capiti a vicenda." Also, in this thread https://forum.duolingo.com/comment/2566087 sandrabruck stated the following:
ci crediamo a vicenda
In Italian normally you would use "a vicenda" to avoid confusion or ambiguity
ci laviamo a vicenda.. (ci laviamo would always be understood as there are more than one person and each one is washing himself...)
- 889
So why do the dictionary hints indicate "avevamo" and "capito"? Eravamo and capito were not even listed as suggested translations!
- 153
The hints are automatically generated and aren’t for this specific question. You can report the hints in an error report to bring it to the contributors’ attention.
I looked at the hints and realized that "capiti" wasn't listed. At this point I've come to realize that it takes a bit of knowledge to move past the hints.
I was corrected to "Ci capimmo," a form I don't think I'd ever seen before....
Actually it is a reciprocal verb in this instance which is an offshoot of reflexive verbs and takes essere with the usual reflexive pronouns
how do you know when to use Avevamo or Eravamo. The clue say avevamo but the correct word was eravamo
- 834
when "you understand each other" or "they understand each other" it's reflexive (capirsi), and uses 'essere'. when "you understand something" it's transitive (capire) and uses 'avere'.
Noi ci eravamo capiti has been rejected for the same thing without noi. Don't understand why
it's redundant, and doubly so since the verb is reflexive - the subject is the same as the object, and this understanding is embedded in the conjugation of the verb, so an explicit subject pronoun is unnecessary.
- 615
I am becoming very confused over when to use avevamo and eravamo, in this case I used ci avevamo capiti, and the drop down for this used avevamo not eravamo but the correct answer was eravamo? I thought we had was avevamo, and we were was eravamo .
- 898
What about "Ce eravamo capite"? Wouldn't that be correct if it was two female persons speaking?
- 153
Yes, but the pronoun would still be "ci" if you were talking about two females: "ci eravamo capite".
- 153
The verb here is "capirsi", which is a reflexive verb, and reflexive verbs take "essere" when forming the past tense, not "avere".
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