n'e'

Could you explain what these contractions mean? I often see them in certain Italian text, and though I can understand them in the context, I don't know exactly what they stand for. This is the sentence where I found them in the course. Ce n'e' solo una rimasta, (4.6). (can't find the symbol over the e in this font, so I just use an apostrophe). Grazie, Edith

Ciao Edith, welcome back to Rocket Italian Forum. "N'è" is the union of the pronoun ne +the verb "è" (is). The pronoun "ne" can be translated in English in different ways depending on the sentence you have. Generally it means "about him/her/them/it", "from that", "of it/them", "any", "some", "any", "other". I know it could sound a little bit confusing so I write here some examples: -Io amo i cani. Ne ho sempre avuti tanti. (I love dogs. I always have got many of them) -Carlo ne vuole tre (Carlo want three of them) -Non ce ne sono più (There aren't any more) Hope to have been helpful! Please let me know if you need any further information. All the best for your Italian learning! The Rocket Italian Team

Why did you change avuto to avuti (Ne ho sempre avuti tanti)? I thought I only had to agree if the verb used essere for the past tense? Thanks

Ciao Maycha, welcome to the Rocket Italian Forum and Community. You are right : -when "essere" is used, the past participle must agree in gender and plural with the subject. -when "avere" is used, the past participle does not agree with the subject. This is the general rule that I'd say that it covers 99% of the sentences you'll use. An exception in which you can find "avuti" instead than "avuto" is in sentences in which the pronoun "ne" is used. In fact when you use this pronoun with a compound tense, the past participle agrees with it as in my example: "Ne ho sempre avuti tanti". We say "avuti" because it's referred to the dogs (i cani=masc. pl.) To make it easier, we could say : "Ho avuto sempre tanti cani " becomes "Ne ho sempre avuti tanti" (I have always had a lot of dogs) becomes (I have always had a lot of them) Hope to have helped! All the best for your Italian course. Ciao. Romina Rocket Italian Team