Grammatica

Short, clear notes on the Italian verb tenses in Varco, with conjugation tables and examples, plus a guide to pronouns.

Elementare

Il presente

Regular Italian verbs fall into three families by their infinitive ending: -are, -ere and -ire.

Most -ire verbs, like finire, capire and preferire, take the -isc form in every conjugation except noi and voi. Other -ire verbs take a more standard conjugation (see chart above). There is generally no rule to determine whether an -ire verb takes -isc or the standard variation.

Spelling changes

• Verbs in -care and -gare add an h before i to keep the hard sound: cerchi, cerchiamo; paghi, paghiamo.
• Verbs in -ciare and -giare don’t double the i: cominci, mangi, mangiamo.

Essere, avere e stare

The three most important irregular verbs are essere, avere and stare. Essere and avere are the auxiliary verbs for every compound tense; stare is the auxiliary for the progressive tenses.

Irregular verbs

Irregular verbs can fall into several patterns that won’t be covered in these pages. The following are some of the essential irregular verbs in addition to essere and avere (above) to memorize:

fare, andare, dire, venire, dare, sapere, uscire, volere, potere, dovere

↑ Indice

Passato prossimo

Passato prossimo represents a completed action or event in the recent past that has a connection to the present. It is a compound tense, meaning that it uses an auxiliary verb, avere or essere, combined with the past participle of the main action verb.

• In general, verbs in any compound tense, including passato prossimo, use avere as the auxiliary verb: ho parlato, abbiamo dormito.
• When avere is used as the auxiliary, the participle remains fixed in gender and number. For instance: ho mangiato, abbiamo mangiato. The exception to this rule is the presence of a direct pronoun before avere. When the direct pronoun lo, la, li or le is present, the participle must agree in number and gender with the pronoun. For example: L’ho mangiato, L’abbiamo mangiata, Li ha mangiati, Le avete mangiate.
• Some intransitive verbs (verbs that do not take a direct object) use essere as their auxiliary verb: mainly verbs of movement (andare, venire) and change of state (nascere, diventare), plus essere, stare, restare and all reflexive verbs. The past participle of these verbs must agree in gender and number with the subject: Marco è partito, Anna è partita. Mixed groups default to the masculine plural, whereas groups of one gender take that gender: Marco e Anna sono partiti; Anna e Giulia sono partite.

Past participles

Many if not most past participles follow a regular pattern.

• -are → -ato: mangiare → mangiato, camminare → camminato
• -ere → -uto: credere → creduto, volere → voluto
• -ire → -ito: finire → finito, riuscire → riuscito

Irregular participles must be memorized but can fall into clusters:

• -tto: scrivere → scritto, fare → fatto, leggere → letto
• -so, -sso: prendere → preso, muovere → mosso, chiudere → chiuso
• -erto, -orto: coprire → coperto, aprire → aperto, morire → morto
• -nto: spingere → spinto, vincere → vinto
• -lto: scegliere → scelto

↑ Indice

Imperfetto

Imperfetto describes habits, descriptions and ongoing actions in the past. Use imperfetto to describe what was happening, what used to happen or how things/people were in the past.

Construction: verb infinitive minus -re + vo, vi, va, vamo, vate, vano

↑ Indice

Futuro semplice

Describes what will happen in the future.

Construction: infinitive minus -re + rò, rai, rà, remo, rete, ranno. -are verbs change the a to e: mangiare → mangerò. Verbs in -ciare and -giare also drop the i (mangerò, comincerò), and verbs in -care and -gare add an h (cercherò, pagherò).

↑ Indice

Imperativo

Used for commands, instructions or invitations. Imperativo utilizes the present tense forms for tu, noi and voi with the exception that -are verbs in the second person singular (tu) use "a" instead of "i" and the formal Lei and Loro forms use the congiuntivo presente (see table below).

• Negative imperativo: tu: non + infinitive: Non parlare!
  All other forms simply add non. For instance, Non parliamo!
• Some irregular verbs can clip the 2nd person singular (tu) form. Both are correct.
  Short tu forms: vai or va’ (andare), dai or da’ (dare), fai or fa’ (fare), stai or sta’ (stare). Dire has only the short form: di’. Here the apostrophe marks a shortened word.
• Essere and avere: sii, siamo, siate; abbi, abbiamo, abbiate.
• With tu, noi and voi, the pronoun is added to the end of the verb: Mangialo! Diciamoglielo! With the formal Lei and Loro, it goes before the verb: Lo mangi!
  After the short forms, the pronoun’s first consonant doubles: Dammi, Fallo, Dillo.

↑ Indice

Intermedio

Condizionale presente

Describes or expresses a hypothetical situation, politeness, desires, advice, and unreal conditions.

Construction: infinitive minus -re + rei, resti, rebbe, remmo, reste, rebbero. As in the futuro, -are verbs change the a to e: mangiare → mangerei.

↑ Indice

Condizionale passato

Follows the same rules as compound tenses like passato prossimo, using the auxiliary verbs essere or avere. The auxiliary is conjugated with the same rules as the condizionale presente.

↑ Indice

Congiuntivo presente

Used to express wishes/desires, opinions, emotions, uncertainty, doubt and anything that is not presented as a fact. Congiuntivo is usually expressed in dependent clauses with “che”.

• wishes/desires: spero che, voglio che
• opinions: credo che, penso che, è importante che
• emotions: sono felice che
• possibility: è possibile che

Conjugation: the three singular forms (io, tu, lei/lui/Lei) are identical. It is necessary to use the correct pronoun to distinguish who is performing the action.

Construction (regular verbs): root (infinitive minus -are, -ere, -ire) + i, i, i (-are verbs) / a, a, a (-ere, -ire verbs), iamo, iate, ino (-are verbs) / ano (-ere, -ire verbs). Note: -are verbs take a different form for the 1st–3rd person singular and the 3rd person plural.

↑ Indice

Trapassato prossimo

A past action that takes place before another past action. For example:

• Avevo già mangiato, quindi non avevo fame.
• Non aveva dormito la notte prima, quindi non è riuscito a stare attento a lezione.

Construction: essere or avere as the auxiliary verb, conjugated in the imperfetto, + the past participle of the action.

↑ Indice

Progressivo presente

An action in progress right now: stare in the presente + the gerundio.

Gerundio: -are → -ando, -ere and -ire → -endo: mangiando, ricevendo, dormendo. Common irregulars: fare → facendo, dire → dicendo, bere → bevendo.

• Sto mangiando.
• Cosa stai facendo?

↑ Indice

Progressivo imperfetto

An action that was in progress in the past, often interrupted by another: stare in the imperfetto (stavo, stavi, stava, stavamo, stavate, stavano) + the gerundio.

• Stavo mangiando quando hai chiamato.

↑ Indice

Avanzato

Congiuntivo passato

Used to express wishes/desires, opinions, emotions, uncertainty, doubt and anything that is not presented as a fact in the immediate past (see passato prossimo). Uses the congiuntivo form of essere or avere as the auxiliary and the past participle of the verb.

↑ Indice

Congiuntivo trapassato

A compound tense used to express a hypothetical past action that takes place before another past action.

Construction: uses the congiuntivo imperfetto of essere or avere as the auxiliary and the past participle of the verb. For example:

• Se glielo avessi detto, lei sarebbe stata preparata.

↑ Indice

Congiuntivo imperfetto

The congiuntivo imperfetto expresses desire, doubt, emotion or uncertainty in the past. It is used in the same contexts as the congiuntivo presente when the main verb is in the past or conditional (Pensavo che fosse a casa. Vorrei che tu venissi.), and in if-clauses describing unlikely or imaginary situations (Se avessi tempo, viaggerei.).

Construction: infinitive minus -re + ssi, ssi, sse, ssimo, ste, ssero

↑ Indice

Passato remoto

Expresses events in the distant past, unconnected to present events. It is often used in historical or literary contexts.

Construction:

• -are verbs: root + ai, asti, ò, ammo, aste, arono
• -ere verbs: root + ei, esti, é, emmo, este, erono
• -ire verbs: root + ii, isti, ì, immo, iste, irono

Note: passato remoto is particularly prone to irregular forms.

↑ Indice

Futuro anteriore

Expresses the completion of an action in the future before another future event, or a probability about a past event. For example:

• Avrà finito il lavoro prima della riunione. (completed future event before another future event): “She will have finished the work before the meeting.”
• Avrai dimenticato il telefono. (supposition or expression of probability): “You must have forgotten your phone.”

Construction: essere or avere as the auxiliary, conjugated in futuro semplice, with the past participle of the verb.

↑ Indice

Extra

Pronomi

Pronomi diretti e indiretti

A direct object pronoun replaces the person or thing that receives the action directly (what? or whom?): Vedo Marco → Lo vedo. An indirect object pronoun replaces the person the action is done to or for, usually introduced by a (to whom?): Parlo a Marco → Gli parlo.

• Where they go: before the conjugated verb (Lo vedo), or attached to an infinitive, a gerund or a tu/noi/voi command (Voglio vederlo, Guardalo!).
• Lo and la become l’ before a vowel or h: L’ho visto.
• In compound tenses, the participle agrees with lo, la, li, le: Le ho comprate. (See Passato prossimo.)

Pronomi combinati

When a sentence has both, the indirect pronoun comes first and changes form: mi, ti, ci, vi become me, te, ce, ve, and gli and le both become glie-, joined to what follows in one word.

• Do il libro a Marco → Glielo do.
• Mi presti la penna? → Me la presti?
• Mi ha insegnato la canzone → Me l’ha insegnata.
• Porta il libro a lei! → Portaglielo!

Varco’s Pronomi combinati quiz (in Extra) practices these forms.

↑ Indice