This lesson is about Italian verbs, and where to start!
I’m assuming here that you have little or no experience of learning foreign languages. If that’s not the case, feel free to skip ahead!
Verbs have different forms for each “person”, for example in English the verb “to be” conjugates “I am” “You are” “He is” and so on.
The infinitive in English is with “to” as in “To be, or not to be?”
The infinitive in Italian ends with “-are”, “-ere” or “-ire”, for example: “essere” (to be). There’s no “to”, just the suffix at the end.
Verbs can be regular (follow a pattern) or irregular (deviate from the pattern).
In English, present tense verbs are mostly regular. Foreign students therefore find them easy to remember…
But when beginning Italian (and other foreign languages) you need to learn how to conjugate quite a number of verb forms before being able to say or understand even the simplest things. It’s quite hard at first, but easier later.
So, let’s begin. But first, just to be sure, what do we mean by “conjuage” a verb?
Here’s an example in English:
“To Be”
I am, You are, He/She/It is, We are, You (this is the plural “you”) are, They are
As you can see, the singular come first. “I” & “You” are called the first person and the second person. The third person is the “He/She/It”.
Then the plural (We, You, They).
In Italian the verb “to be” is “Essere” and it looks like this:
io sono, tu sei, lui/lei/Lei è, noi siamo, voi siete, loro/Loro sono
You can see that there’s more variation than in English. Each of the 6 forms is different. For the third person singular (he/she/it) in Italian there’s no it, just he/she.
But there is an extra form, which has a capital letter, “Lei”. Italians use it when they’re being formal, no matter if the “third person” is male or female. So, while your brother is a “lui” and your sister a “lei”, your male or female teachers would both be “Lei”, at least if you want to be respectful.
It’s the same with the plural “loro” is “they”, “Loro” if being formal. More on that in another lesson.
So, what do you need to learn about verbs in order to speak and understand Italian?
1.) The prounouns:
io – tu – lui – lei – Lei – noi – voi – loro – Loro
2.) The present tense form for the three types of regular verbs, plus the most frequent irregular verbs
Now there’s some good news and some bad news…
The Good News
Some things we say in English, you don’t usually need to bother with when speaking Italian.
1. I am Daniel = Sono Daniel
Notice anything missing in the Italian version? You don’t need to use the pronoun “io” in Italian (or any other pronoun) unless you want to emphasise who you’re talking about. Why? Because in Italian the conjugation of the verb makes it obvious you mean “io”.
2. Another good thing: Italian has various present tenses, but they don’t seem to get used much. So if you know how to say “Vado” (I go), that’s good also to mean “I’m going” or even “I will go” most of the time.
The Bad News
Learning to conjugate verbs in Italian is a pain. There are lots of them, and it really will take a long time before you can use them and understand them easily.
What to do now
In this course, we’ll give you verbs a few at a time, starting with the most important ones, and the ones that demonstrate the regular patterns. But you need to put the effort in to memorise them!
Irregular Verbs To Memorise
essere – to be
io sono, tu sei, lui/lei/Lei è, noi siamo, voi siete, loro/Loro sono
avere – to have
io ho, tu hai, lui/lei/Lei ha, noi abbiamo, voi avete, loro/Loro hanno
fare – to do
io faccio, tu fai, lui/lei/Lei fa, noi facciamo, voi fate, loro/Loro fanno
volere – to want
io voglio, tu vuoi, lui/lei/Lei vuole, noi vogliamo, voi volete, loro/Loro vogliono,
Regular verbs to memorise
chiamarsi – be called
io mi chiamo, tu ti chiami, lui/lei/Lei si chiama, noi ci chiamiamo, voi vi chiamate, loro/Loro si chiamano
parlare – to speak
io parlo, tu parli, lui/lei/Lei parla, noi parliamo, voi parlate, loro/Loro parlano
abitare – to live
io abito, tu abiti, lui/lei/Lei abita, noi abitiamo, voi abitate, loro/Loro abitano
lavorare – to work
io lavoro, tu lavori, lui/lei/Lei lavora, noi lavoriamo, voi lavorate, loro/Loro lavorano
prendere – to take
io prendo, tu prendi, lui/lei/Lei prende, noi prendiamo, voi prendete, loro/Loro prendono
preferire – to prefer
io preferisco, tu preferisci, lui/lei/Lei preferisce, noi preferiamo, voi preferite, loro/Loro preferiscono
How to memorise verbs
If you have no better ideas as to how to memorise the verbs, just write them on scraps of paper and then keep testing yourself with them until you can do it. Or you could record yourself reading them, then listen to them again and again.
But however you do it, come back to them again the day after, then again a week or so later, to revise. That’ll help you keep them in your head.
Back to Italian lesson on: Italian Verbs In The Present Tense
