"Loro erano vissuti insieme."
Translation:They had lived together.
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By the way, why is is it "erano vissuti" and not "avevano vissuto"? I thought vivere was conjugated with avere and not essere. Are both options possible and is there any difference between their meaning?
The dictionary says the main auxiliary is essere, and in some meanings avere; honestly, I feel that they're more or less interchangeable, as long as the usage agrees with the standard rules, i.e. when used transitively you must use avere ("ha vissuto una lunga vita").
Thanks! That's great. Funnily enough, I checked the conjugator tool on wordreference and it said that avere was the main auxiliary. Go figure! (How would you say that in Italian by the way?) What dictionary are you referring to? As you mention it, where is a good place to find the "standard rules" for avere vs essere? Ta
I'm not sure what I'd choose, actually. I checked on http://www.treccani.it/vocabolario/vivere/; as for rules, a search on google turned up whole books :O However on http://www.joyfulit.it/2012/01/auxiliary-verbs-in-italian/ there is a short enough explanation of the rules I was referring to: basically it's always avere with transitive verbs and always essere with reflexive verbs (which can't be the case for vivere). It doesn't address those who accept both like vivere and piovere, or the usage of venire as passive auxiliary, but it gives a good enough overview.
It is grammatically correct to say "erano vissuti" when the verb is intransitive (as an example I can think of "feelings that had been lived together by two people") but in this sentence without context, any Italian native speaker would assume that the verb is transitive because the subject is omitted (so that a native speaker would understand that "two people had lived together"). The result is that it just sounds wrong.
I am a bit slow here but I cant see how it could be transitive, there is no object
why is 'vivere' used in this case and not 'abitare'? To me it makes more sense to say that they had habituated the same place rather than that they were not dead.
I think they are living with each other rather than inhabiting a place, that's the way it reads to me anyway
Habituate = become accustomed to, relate it to habit. Habitate = to live "there". Inhabit = to live in the place.
Correct. Although I'd add that "habitate" isn't really a word. It's an attempt to make a verb from the noun "habitation". In any case, "inhabit" is the correct translation of "abitare", and "habituated" makes no sense in this sentence.
thanks nerevarine1138. I was replying to Zenzero_66. Habituate does not make sense because it is translated as "become accustomed to." Exactly my point. Inhabit, would of course be the word of choice regarding "living there".
Even if vissuto takes 'essere' rather than 'avere', why is the translation 'they lived' rather than 'they had lived'? Doesn't make sense to me.
Can anyone tell me why vissuto/vissuta/vissuti/vissute is in some sentences used with avere and in others with essere?
This site suggests that they're interchangeable now: http://grammatica.impariamoitaliano.com/2018/06/qual-e-lausiliare-del-verbo-vivere.html
But traditionally, you only use "avere" when "vivere" is transitive (see the examples in the link). In English, I think we would often translate this use of "vivere" as "to live through" something.
I don't see how you can translate this as they HAD lived together
What's the confusion? This is the standard formulation of the past perfect tense in Italian.
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For past perfect we either use "will have" or "had". It is not to be confused with present perfect: "Loro sono vissuti insieme" - "They lived together"