Yes James. I agree with you. But.... the old question: "essere" o "avere"? It's very difficult to give a full and clear elucidation about that. We know for sure that all of the transitive verbs take "avere" as ausiliar while all of the reflexive forms of verbs take "essere". For the intransitive verbs it's more complicated and there isn't a specific rule. Verbs which take "essere" are not so much, as you said, but they are not as few as you wrote. In order to make you all confused :) :) :) I can say that there are some verbs which take both "essere" and "avere". In that few cases they are perfectly interchargeble. If you can read italian I advise you this web page http://www.scudit.net/mdwausiliare.htm You can find in it some useful tables Ciao Andrea

- Siamo arrivati This is beacuse "Noi" is plural. "arrivato" is for the singular masculine while "arrivata" is for feminine. - Io sono arrivato/a - Tu sei arrivato/a - Lui/Lei è arrivato/a - Noi siamo arrivati - Voi siete arrivati - Loro sono arrivati

Siamo arrivati

Sorry, I missed the additional details of your question. So let me say something about them. "Noi siamo arrivati" or "siamo arrivati" You can use both of expressions. Just like other languages, cutting pronouns is used more in colloquial forms

Just like in French, Italian has two types of verbs in the past perfect: 1. verbs which take avere (the majority) 2. verbs which take essere (fewer than 20). The verb "arrivare" is part of the second group which takes essere. Unlike the verbs from the first group which take avere, verbs which take essere must also agree in number and gender. Therefore, because "noi" is plural, the past participle must be "arrivati", rather than "arrivato". We arrived = Noi siamo arrivati