How to conjugate Italian verbs for beginners

Welcome to the easiest and fastest way to start conjugating Italian regular verbs. By the end of this lesson, you’ll have a solid understanding of:

• What a verb is
• Personal pronouns
• The three main verb groups
• How to conjugate the present tense

.

.

What is a verb?

A verb is a word that describes an action, state, or event. For example:

• Ballo con Giorgio. (I dance with Giorgio.)
• Amo il mio cane. (I love my dog.)
• La festa inizia alle 7. (The party starts at 7.)

In these sentences, the verbs are ballo, amo and inizia.

.

Personal pronouns

Personal pronouns tell us who is doing the action. Let’s take a look:

.

The three groups of Italian verbs

Italian verbs belong to three groups (or conjugations) based on their endings: -are, -ere, and -ire.

For example, parlare ends in -are, so it’s part of the -are conjugation. Most regular verbs fall into this group.

.

The basic conjugations

Let’s focus on the present tense (indicativo) for regular verbs.

Here is a table of the three conjugations. As you can see the first conjugation is the -are (in red), the second is the -ere (in green) and the third is the -ire (in blue). Each conjugation has a set of endings for each personal pronoun.

.

.

How to conjugate regular verbs

If we isolate the ending (-are, -ere and -ire) we are left with the base form. For example in the case of parlare, the base form is parl-. To conjugate a verb we take the base form and add the ending according to who speaks.

For example to say I speak I need to conjugate the verb to speak, parlare (parl-are). So you lose the ending of the verb -are and add the ending for I (io) which is -o, see table above.   

More examples:     

Io parlo italiano.  (I speak Italian.)

Tu parli inglese.  (You speak English.)

Lei parla francese.  (She speaks French.)

.

The present tense – simplified

The present tense is actually simpler than it looks. Take a look at these patterns to make the previous table easier to learn:

1. The endings for io (I), tu (you), and noi (we) are the same across all three conjugations. Learn them once, and you’re set!
2. The only ending changing for each conjugation is the voi ending, which follows a simple pattern:
   • –are: –ate
   • –ere: –ete
   • –ire: –ite
3. The endings for the entire conjugations -ere and -ire are identical, with only one exception voi (you plural).

Here’s a simplified table to help you spot patterns and learn faster:

.

What’s Next?

In our second lesson, you’ll dive deeper into:

• Pronunciation patterns
• Negative forms
• Using verbs without pronouns
• The special -isc verbs
• Verbs ending in -care and -gare

Download your free lesson here. This also includes a list of your most important 50 verbs to learn.