The Three Verb Forms

If you haven't read the Verbs page perhaps you should as it lays down the basics!

The Verb Endings

Bare in mind that Italian has no "it" as such as everything has gender and is either "he - lui" or "she - lei". There used to be two words for "it" one masculine one feminine but they are no longer used. Also bare in mind that "she - lei" is the formal way to say "you" when addressing a person with whom you are not familiar.

As you can see English only changes the ending in the third case but Italian always changes the ending.

Because in Italian you know who it is by the verb ending, nobody says the personal pronoun because its not necessary. (Though sometimes Italians will say the personal pronoun for emphasis.) Here are the usual endings for the three verb types where the infinitive ends with ~are, ~ere or ~ire.

I have highlighted in italics the endings that are subtly different in the three cases. You might get mixed up a bit to start with but if you use an -a ending instead of an -e or an -ate instead of an -ete or -ite ending you are unlikely to be misunderstood. So if you want to use prendere - to take to say “she takes” it would be;

• prende

Now you can see how things are constructed, you can advance from “pidgin Italian” to “beach Italian”. On the beach you often hear;

• andiamo

That is “andare”, "to go", with the “we” ending. Its what parents say to their children when they are leaving the beach, “we go”.

Annoying But Important Verbs

Remember the first verbs on the list;

• Basic verbs
• essere - to be
• stare - to stay/be
• avere - to have
• fare - to make/do

They are trouble;

In English and Italian! The actual Italian is in bold under the word "essere". The light text under the word "hypothetical" is what it would be if essere followed the rules you just learned. So because you use essere all the time its worth learning some of this verb properly. Don’t learn it all at once though just learn what you need. The first three are the most useful. Note also that sono can mean “I am” or “they are” and they won’t use the personal pronoun to tell you!?

Also note that “esso”, “essi” and “essa” once were used in Italian but now appear only in some regional dialects and in some literature. “esso” and “essa” used to be singular masculine and singular feminine forms of “it” meaning an object. Also then “essi” and “esse” become the plural masculine and plural feminine forms of “it”. So you can’t use them for the verb!! [Forgotton Italian Subject Pronouns]

Remarkably “to stay” survived relatively unscathed the light text is what it could have been. The verb "stare" in Italian is broader than the English "to stay" and often is equivalent to "to be".

Here is how someone messed up “to have”. Again the light text is what it could have been.

Here is how someone messed up “to make or do”. Again the light text is what it could have been.

Ridiculous! But let’s never talk about it again. These are some of the worst. They really arn't all as bad as this!

These are the four most common verbs and we will use them a lot so learn them for “I” and “he/she/you(s.for)” which in Italian is the case for “lui/lei/lei – he/she/you(singular formal)