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Level I

Lesson1

Lesson2

Lesson3

Lesson4

Lesson5

Lesson6

Lesson7

Italian Expressions

Italian Lesson 4

Italian Past Tense

In Italian you can only make the past tense by combining (the auxiliary + the past participle), it’s not that complicated, it’s almost like English, almost the same way you make the present perfect to express something that happened in the past, you can say in English: I wrote a book, or I’ve written a book, in Italian you can only say I’ve written the book.

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As you may have noticed in the table above, most verbs are conjugated with “avere”, however some verbs are conjugated with “essere”.

As I have mentioned in the “past participle” lesson, regular form simply add (~ato, ~uto, ~ito) to the stem of verbs, depending on the type of verbs, if the verbs in the infinitive ends with ~are, then  add ~ato: parlato (the verb parlare), add ~uto to the verbs ending with ~are: creduto (the verb credere), and finally add ~ito to verbs ending in their infinitive with ~ire: partito (the verb partire)

Note that some verbs take their past participle with the verb “avere”, while some other verbs take their past participle with the verb essere (usually motion verbs)

Also note that the past participle of verbs associated with “essere” should agree with the number and gender, so for example partito (gone) can also be sono partita (I went, for a female)/ siamo partiti (we men went…)/ siete partite (you females went)

Verbs going with “avere” don’t have to agree with the number and gender, look at the examples in the table above.

Remember: to form the past participle with verbs conjugated with “essere” the gender and number matter, but not with verbs conjugated with “avere”.

Irregular Forms: memorize the verbs that take irregular forms in the past participle such as:

So you don’t have to add (ate, uto, ito) to these verbs on the top, take their whole new form and place an auxiliary verb “avere” or “essere” before them.

Verbs that go with “essere”, most of them are verbs of motion…here is a list:

Except these verbs on the top, 90% of the rest of verbs go with “avere”.

Non ho mai visitato Roma. (I’ve never visited Rome)

Dove hai passato le vacanze? (where have you spent your vacation?)

Ho visto un film interessante la settimana scorsa (I watched a very interesting movie last week)

Sono nato negli USA (I was born in the U.S)

Siamo nati in Spagna (we were born in Spain)

Italian Interrogative

To make a question in Italian you simply need to add a question mark to the sentence, if you’re speaking then just add a tone to your words.

However you need to know some other forms, you can make a question in three ways:

Hicham ha un cane? (does Hicham have a dog?)
Ha un cane Hicham? (does Hicham have a dog?)
Ha Hicham un cane? (does Hicham have a dog?)

Also you may need some interrogative pronouns and interrogative prepositions to help you make questions:

Italian Possessive Pronoun

most of the time the article (il/la/i/le) should be used before the possessive form, example:

il mio libro (my book)

la mia casa è dove sono felice (my house is where I’m happy)

However you may use the possessive form without its preceding article (il/la/i/le) in these cases:

-Before family relation words in the singular. “mio pardre” (my father)

-When the pronoun follows the verb "essere", "Questa è mia" (this is mine)

-When the adjective follows the noun it refers to, "Questi sono libri miei" (these are my book)

Italian Direct Object Pronouns

They are similar to reflexive pronouns, except in the third person singular and plural ("si"). Object pronouns have two forms: one is used when the pronoun is placed before the verb form or combined with it, the other when the pronoun is placed after the verb. 

Object pronouns can replace more than one word or an entire sentence, and both direct and indirect pronouns go directly in front of the verb, except loro, which always follows the verb.

ti amo (I love you), la amo (I love her), mi ami (you love me).

With infinitives or participles, the pronoun (except loro) follows it and is written as one word. Posso studiarla oggi (I can study it today)

In the negative form, "non" precede the pronoun placed in front of verb. Non la posso studiare oggi (I can’t study it today)

In case you have more than one pronoun, the indirect comes before the direct.  Tei amo, te lo dico desso (I love you, I tell it to you now)

Confusion Issues:

Writing training: write the same conversation which was between Speak7 and Antonio, but this time you and an imaginary person, try to look up info that you don’t know their translation in Italian, apply some of the grammar you learned, and see how it goes J

Speaking training: try to read the conversation you just wrote out loud, train yourself well, you might need that for a real conversation in the future.

This table has some useful expression that might help you expend your knowledge of Italian: