Italian verbs without fear: where to start, and what can wait

Italian verbs have a reputation. Six persons, regular and irregular forms, simple and compound tenses: the full tables can look endless. But nobody learns them all at once, and you do not need them all to start speaking. What matters is the order.

Step 1: essere and avere

Two verbs carry a huge part of the language. Essere (to be) and avere (to have) are used on their own ("sono italiano", "ho fame") and as auxiliaries to build the compound tenses. Learn their present forms by heart first:

Step 2: the present tense of regular verbs

Most Italian verbs end in -are, -ere or -ire, and each group follows a pattern. Learn one model verb per group (parlare, credere, dormire), and you can conjugate thousands of verbs in the present. Watch out for the -isc- verbs (capire → capisco), a common variation of the -ire group.

Step 3: talking about the past with the passato prossimo

The passato prossimo ("ho mangiato", "sono andato") is the everyday past tense in spoken Italian. It is built from essere or avere plus the past participle, which is why step 1 comes first. The key question is which auxiliary to use: most verbs take avere; verbs of movement and change of state, and reflexive verbs, take essere, and then the participle agrees with the subject (sono andata, siamo andati).

Step 4: the imperfetto and the future

The imperfetto describes how things were and what used to happen ("da bambino giocavo a calcio"); it is regular for almost all verbs. The simple future ("domani partirò") is easy to form and useful early on. With present, passato prossimo, imperfetto and future you can handle most conversations up to B1.

Step 5: the conditional and the subjunctive

The conditional ("vorrei un caffè") arrives early as a polite phrase, and becomes a full tense later. The subjunctive (congiuntivo) follows expressions of opinion, doubt and wish ("penso che sia vero"). It is important, but it can wait until the basics are solid. The passato remoto, used mostly in writing and in the speech of parts of southern Italy, can wait even longer: you will recognise them in books long before you need to use them.

Learn verbs the way you use them

• Say the forms out loud. You will use verbs in speech, so train them in speech.
• Test yourself. Hide the table, say the forms, then check.
• Meet them in context. Notice the verbs in every story or dialogue you read.
• Mark what you know. Keep track of which tenses are done and which need review.

ItaLearn has 12,825 Italian verbs with their meanings, participles and full conjugation in 16 tenses, with audio for every form, and lets learners mark each tense as done, to do or wrong. Lessons by level introduce the tenses in the order above, and short games keep them fresh.