Part 3/3 ------------------------------ > "Da quando avevo 16 anni, frequento un posto che si chiama Bar Italia, più nel passato ma ancora a volte lo frequento." A bit of marginal refining: "Da quando avevo 16 anni, frequento un posto che si chiama Bar Italia – più nel passato, ma a volte ci vado ancora." Your sentence is correct: here you tipically use the presente tense, and, among the alternatives, passato prossimo would be the only one with a very similar meaning. The following sentences are correct, too: "Frequentavo un posto che si chiama Bar Italia e a volte ci vado ancora" "Ho frequentato a lungo un posto che si chiama Bar Italia e a volte ci vado ancora", "Avevo frequentato a lungo un posto che si chiama Bar Italia, in cui a volte ancora vado", "Frequentai a lungo un posto che si chiama Bar Italia: poi la gestione cambiò e dietro al banco misero un tipo sgarbato, quindi smisi di andarci; ora il vecchio proprietario è tornato e qualche volta mi piace andare là, per farmi una bevuta con gli amici, come ai vecchi tempi". Again, this sentence doesn't involve much in terms of relationships among tenses: your choice depends on what you want to say. As regards "In the past I would go the pub, but nowadays I don't have the time to go there.", I'd say that the same logic is necessarily found in the translation: "In passato andavo al pub, ma oggi non ne ho il tempo". Can you give us an example of a similar text you wrote and the relevant criticism implying that you need to apply a different logic to Italian tenses? P.S. Any corrections to my poor English will be more than welcome. ;-)

Part 2/3 ------------------------------ A.4) trapassato prossimo (perfective aspect, past in the past) + habit/iteration "… avevamo frequentato un posto che si chiamava Bar Italia…" You're talking about past in the past: your current habits aren't involved. You present the iterated action as both complete and not extending further than the current present of your narration, which is a moment in the past identifiable in the co-text. As you see, once you choose your tense, the snippet I isolated is rather characterized, without even taking into account the remaining of the sentence. B.1) imperfetto (past + imperfective aspect) "… quest'ultimo era un bar inglese…" Does it still exist? We don't know. B.2) presente "… quest'ultimo è un bar inglese…" … which still exists. B.3) past tense + perfective aspect "… quest'ultimo è stato un bar inglese…" "… quest'ultimo fu un bar inglese…" "… quest'ultimo era stato un bar inglese…" … which has been closed (and, maybe, later reopened – but in this case you have to let us know). > Below is an imagined version if I live in London writing the text. Understood, but the situation is the same as above: your current location can't play a role. While, if you either live in London or you live elsewhere and sometimes return to London, you can still visit those places, this can't affect the syntax in the least bit. Similarly, while it is true that, if you now live elsewhere and you never return to London, you can't visit those places anymore, this doesn't play a role in the syntax of your text.

Ciao George, when you write in italian it is suggested that you use only one tense, so if you are writing something about you, like a bibliography it is usually written in the past or the present. However if you are writing something else you are able to switch tenses. :) if you have more questions don't hesitate to contact me !

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Grazie a tutti :)