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Passato Remoto - worth studying or not?
Ciao tutti, I'd like to get some opinions from native speakers and Italian learners. As an intermediate language learner, would you invest time to study the Passato Remoto? At which level would you recommend studying it?
I studied Italian for 3 years at school but we never did the Passato Remoto. People have told me that Italians rarely use it in everyday conversation, but it does seem to be used in books quite a lot, and I'd love to read Italian books sooner or later. My current level is somewhere around B1.
I know that in the end the decision is mine, but I'd find it really helpful to read what others think.
May 14, 2020 8:23 PM
Comments · 17
If you are a B1 maybe you can wait, but you have to be aware that if you go in the North of Italy you'd quite never hear passato remoto, whereas in the South is used extensively. Besides it's really common to read it in books.
May 17, 2020
Hi Andrea,
even if it’s not common I’d take my time to study it because it’s quite easy to learn and it’s used in a lot of books.
May 17, 2020
Hello Ann! I'm also learning Italian and I'm probably B1+ level. I love reading books in Italian, but I've never formally studied il passato remoto. It's easier than you think to understand in context because it's obvious who is doing which action. If you wanted to use it yourself, you'd have to study it. But in my experience you don't need to learn the forms to understand them in a passive way.
This is just my experience, and everyone has different ways of learning. Good luck 😊
May 15, 2020
Life is short ...you can skip that.
May 15, 2020
Like intermediate level absolutely no. In italian we use rarely and you only need to study when you want to get stylistic perfection, and at least in an advanced level.
May 14, 2020
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