Present perfect (Il passato prossimo) The present perfect is used for single actions or events ( "I went to school this morning"), or change in state ( "he got angry when I told him that"), contrasting with the imperfect which is used for habits ( "I used to go to school by bike every morning"), or repeated actions, not happening at a specific time ( "he got angry every time someone told him that").
Past participles The past participle is used to form the compound pasts (e.g. ). Regular verbs follow a predictable pattern, but there are many verbs with an irregular past participle. • verbs in add '''''' to the stem: , ; • some verbs in add '''''' to the stem: ; • verbs in add '''''' to the stem: , ; • other verbs in are irregular, they mutate the stem and add '
, , or to the stem: (from ), (from ), ' (from ); • and do exactly the same thing: '
(from ), (from ). Compounds from the root similarly have ' ; • has '
and has '; • and both have ''''''.
Verbs with avere All
transitive verbs and most
intransitive verbs form the present perfect by combining the auxiliary verb '''''' "to have" in the present tense with the past participle of the transitive verb. Except with an immediately preceding third person pronominal direct object, the participle always ends in ''''''. • "the boy I saw" • "I saw him" • "I saw the boy" • "the girl I saw" • "I saw her" • "I saw the girl"
Verbs with essere A small number of
intransitive verbs, namely itself and verbs indicating motion ( "to come", "to go", "to arrive", etc.) use the auxiliary verb '''''' instead of . The past participle in this agrees with gender and number of the subject. When using , the past participle agrees in gender and number with preceding third person direct object
clitic pronouns, following the same pattern of nouns and adjectives: • '''''' masculine singular • '''''' feminine singular • '''''' masculine plural • '''''' feminine plural
Reflexive verbs always use , and their past participle agrees with the subject or with third person object pronouns, if these precede the verb. • "I washed myself" • "we saw each other" • "he washed his legs" • "he washed them, his legs" • "we talked to each other"
Imperfect (''L'imperfetto'') The Imperfect fuses
past tense with
imperfective aspect and is used for: • repeated or habitual actions in the past; • ongoing actions in the past and ongoing actions in the past that are eventually interrupted; • states of being and conditions in the past, including weather, time, age. The difference between imperfective and
perfective aspects can be illustrated clearly with the verb 'to know'. The Italian imperfect expresses being in possession of knowledge in the past, while the perfective expresses the moment of acquiring the knowledge. Imperfective: . 'I knew the truth.' Perfective: . 'I found out the truth.' The imperfect is, in most cases, formed by taking the stem along with the thematic vowel and adding + the ending of the
verbs in the present tense (with instead of ). There are no irregular conjugations in the Imperfect except for , which uses the stem and appears only in 1st and 2nd person plurals. Verbs with contracted infinitive forms use their full stems, e.g. '
(infinitive ), (infinitive ), (infinitive ), ''' (infinitive ). • "they used to speak"
Absolute past (Il passato remoto) The absolute past has a function distinct from the present perfect. It is used for events which are distant from the present and no longer directly affect it (e.g., telling a story), whereas the present perfect is used for more recent events which may have a direct impact on the present. The absolute past may at all times be replaced with the present perfect (but not vice versa). In many areas of Southern Italy, it is still used commonly in spoken language, whereas in Northern-Central Italy and Sardinia it is restricted to written language. Like the past participle, regular verbs are very predictable, but many verbs (mainly of the second conjugation) are irregular. • Regular verbs are formed by taking the stem and the stressed thematic vowel and adding , , main stress, , , and . Verbs in have in the third person singular instead of the expected : • '''''': , , , , , • '''''': , , , , , • '''''': , , , , , • Irregular verbs, which are almost exclusively of the second conjugation, have irregular stems to which the endings , , and are added to form the first-person singular and third-person singular and plural forms, respectively, and, with the exception of , which takes the normal third conjugation endings, the second conjugation endings , , and are added to the normal stem to form the second-person singular and first- and second-person plural forms, respectively (, , , and use their long stems here, as usual): • '
: , , , , , ' • '
: , , , , , ' • '
: , , , , , ' • Some verbs in that follow the regular pattern (, , etc.) have an alternative form in which follows the irregular pattern: • '
: (= ), , (= ), , , ' (= ) • is the only verb that is completely irregular in this tense.
Past perfect (Il trapassato prossimo) Used for activities done prior to another activity (translates to constructions such as "had eaten", "had seen"). The past perfect is formed the same as the past perfect, but with the auxiliary verb in the imperfect. • '''''': • '''''': In literary language, an absolute perfect exists which uses the absolute past of the auxiliaries, and which is used for activities done prior to another activity which is described with the absolutive past. This form is known as . • '''''': • '''''': ==Future==