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Italian Grammar Lessons: Subjunctive Present

In Italian, as in other Romance languages, the subjunctive is the verbal mood used to express doubt, likeliness or uncertainty. If you speak English as your mother language, you might initially have some difficulty knowing when use it.

In Italian, the subjunctive form has four tenses. This page covers the subjunctive present form.

We use subjunctive present with expressions like:

– Credo che/spero che… [I believe/hope that…]

– mi/ti/le/gli/ci/vi sembra/penso che… [It seems to me/I think that…]

– E’ importante/fondamentale che… [It’s important/fundamental that…]

– Suppongo che… [I suppose that…]

Note that in order to use subjunctive present, the subject of the main phrase must be different from the subject in the subordinate clause. When the subject is the same in both phrases, we instead use the preposition di + infinitive verb. For example:

USE OF SUBJUNCTIVE: Credo che Serena canti bene.
SUBJUNCTIVE IS NOT USED HERE: Credo di cantare bene. (“Io credo che io canto bene”)

Now let’s see how subjunctive present is formed with regular verbs:

First group ‘-are’

comprare [to buy]

io compri
tu compri
lui/lei compri
noi compriamo
voi compriate
loro comprino

Second group ‘-ere’

prendere [to take]

io prenda
tu prenda
lui/lei prenda
noi prendiamo
voi prendiate
loro prendano

Third group ‘-ire’

partire [to leave]

io parta
tu parta
lui/lei parta
noi partiamo
voi partiate
loro partano

Below are a few examples of the main irregular verbs. Other verbs are irregular in the subjunctive present but you’ll see if you study the verbs in the table below that if you can remember the verb in the 1st person singular, it should be easy to work out the rest.

essere [to be]

io sia
tu sia
lui/lei sia
noi siamo
voi siate
loro siano

avere [to have]

io abbia
tu abbia
lui/lei abbia
noi abbiamo
voi abbiate
loro abbiano

fare [to do]

io faccia
tu faccia
lui/lei faccia
noi facciamo
voi facciate
loro facciano

dare [to give]

io dia
tu dia
lui/lei dia
noi diamo
voi diate
loro diano

potere [to be able to]

io possa
tu possa
lui/lei possa
noi possiamo
voi possiate
loro possano

Examples of the subjunctive present in use:

Mi sembra che l’appartamento non abbia un balcone.
Credo che si trasferisca per trovare lavoro.
È importante che sia una zona ben collegata al centro.
È fondamentale che si rispetti il codice della strada.

Back to Italian lesson on: Subjunctive Present

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