Italian 3: Essere, Avere, Andare, Fare, plus Gender & Articles

Here is a fact that sounds like bad news and is not: the most common Italian verbs are irregular. Essere, avere, andare, fare, stare, volere, potere, dovere: you will meet them in almost every sentence. The good news is that there are not many of them, and they are worth learning as blocks, the way you learned the alphabet: once, thoroughly, out loud.

This piece gives you the core irregular verbs and a trainer for them, then the other thing every noun carries: a gender and an article. Seven words for “the” look like a lot, but the choice follows two short rules, and a chooser makes them automatic. Take it in two sittings if you like.

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The core irregular verbs

These are the verbs to learn as whole blocks. Say each row aloud until it runs like a rhyme.

	io	tu	lui, lei	noi	voi	loro
essere ▶	sono	sei	è	siamo	siete	sono
avere ▶	ho	hai	ha	abbiamo	avete	hanno
andare ▶	vado	vai	va	andiamo	andate	vanno
fare ▶	faccio	fai	fa	facciamo	fate	fanno
dare ▶	do	dai	dà	diamo	date	danno
stare ▶	sto	stai	sta	stiamo	state	stanno
volere ▶	voglio	vuoi	vuole	vogliamo	volete	vogliono
potere ▶	posso	puoi	può	possiamo	potete	possono
dovere ▶	devo	devi	deve	dobbiamo	dovete	devono
sapere ▶	so	sai	sa	sappiamo	sapete	sanno
venire ▶	vengo	vieni	viene	veniamo	venite	vengono
dire ▶	dico	dici	dice	diciamo	dite	dicono
uscire ▶	esco	esci	esce	usciamo	uscite	escono

Look for the small regularities that remain. Noi always ends in -iamo, even when the stem changes (siamo, abbiamo, facciamo, vogliamo). Voi follows the infinitive in every verb here except essere (siete): andate, avete, volete, fate. The irregularity sits mostly in io, tu, lui and loro, the forms stressed on the stem, as with the -isc- verbs in the last piece.

The h in ho, hai, ha, hanno is silent; it tells ho from o (or), ha from a (to) and hanno from anno (year).

What these verbs do

Essere is “to be” for identity, origin, profession and description: Sono Marco. Sono di Torino. Sono ingegnere. La casa è grande. With ci it says that something exists: c’è (there is) and ci sono (there are): C’è un bar qui vicino? Ci sono due treni all’ora.

Avere is “to have”, and Italian uses it where English uses “to be” for a set of physical states: ho fame (I’m hungry), ho sete (thirsty), ho freddo and ho caldo (cold, hot), ho sonno (sleepy), ho paura (afraid), ho fretta (in a hurry), ho ragione and ho torto (right, wrong), and age: Ho trent’anni, “I have thirty years”.

Stare means “to stay”, and it is also how you say how someone is: Come stai? Sto bene. With a gerund it makes the continuous: Sto mangiando, “I’m eating (right now)”. For where something is and for most states, standard Italian uses essere: Sono a casa, Sono stanco. Stare appears in set phrases such as stare zitto (keep quiet) and stare attento (be careful), and some regional Italian, especially in the south, uses it more widely.

Fare is “to do” and “to make”, and much more: fa caldo (it’s hot), faccio colazione (I have breakfast), Che lavoro fai? (What do you do for a living?). Andare is “to go”: vado a Roma, vado in Italia, vado a casa. Dare is “to give”; its dà keeps an accent to tell it from da, “from”.

Modal verbs, and a few more

Volere (want), potere (can, may) and dovere (must, have to) are followed directly by an infinitive: Voglio partire. Posso entrare? Devo lavorare. Sapere is to know a fact or how to do something (So nuotare, “I can swim”); to know a person or a place is conoscere, a regular verb (Conosci Roma?). The polite way to ask for anything is not voglio but the conditional vorrei, “I would like”: Vorrei un caffè.

Another group of common verbs is irregular in a repeating way: a -g- appears in io and loro. Venire (come) gives vengo, vieni, viene, veniamo, venite, vengono; tenere (hold, keep) works the same. Rimanere (stay) gives rimango, rimangono; salire (go up) gives salgo, salgono; scegliere (choose) gives scelgo, scelgono. Two more to learn as blocks: dire (say: dico, dici, dice, diciamo, dite, dicono) and uscire (go out: esco, esci, esce, usciamo, uscite, escono). Bere (drink) is regular once you know its stem is bev-: bevo, bevi, beve.

Train the irregular forms

The same trainer as before, now with the irregular groups. Switch groups on and off with the first row of buttons: essere and avere; andare, fare, dare, stare; the modal verbs and sapere; and the -g- verbs with their friends. Start with one group, drill it until it feels easy, then add the next.

Gender: every noun is masculine or feminine

Every Italian noun has a gender, even a table or an idea, and the words around it agree: il libro nuovo, la casa nuova. The ending tells you the gender most of the time:

• -o is usually masculine: il libro, il treno, il ragazzo. Famous exceptions: la mano (hand), and short forms of feminine words: la foto (from fotografia), la radio, la moto.
• -a is usually feminine: la casa, la pizza, la ragazza. Exceptions: many words from Greek in -ma (il problema, il sistema, il clima) and il papà.
• -e can be either: il pane, il mare, il fiore but la notte, la chiave, la lezione. Nouns in -zione and -tà are feminine (la stazione, la città); nouns in -ore are usually masculine (il colore, il dottore).
• Borrowed words are usually masculine: il bar, il computer, il film.

For plurals, -o and -e become -i, and -a becomes -e: libro, libri; fiore, fiori; casa, case. Masculine nouns in -a take -i (problema, problemi). Words ending in an accented vowel or a consonant do not change: la città, le città; il caffè, i caffè. A few common words are irregular: l’uomo, gli uomini; l’uovo, le uova; la mano, le mani.

Articles: il, lo, la, and the others

“The” has seven forms in Italian, but the choice is mechanical once you know the noun’s gender and number and look at the sound it starts with.

The noun starts with	Masculine singular	Masculine plural	Feminine singular	Feminine plural
most consonants	il libro	i libri	la casa	le case
s + consonant, z, gn, ps, x, y	lo studente, lo zaino	gli studenti, gli zaini	la scuola	le scuole
a vowel	l’amico	gli amici	l’amica	le amiche

Read it this way: feminine is simple, la and le, with l’ before a vowel. Masculine is il and i for most words, but switches to lo and gli before a cluster that would be hard to say after il: an s followed by another consonant (lo sport, lo stesso), a z (lo zucchero), gn, ps (lo psicologo), and before a vowel (l’albergo, gli alberghi). An s followed by a vowel is an ordinary consonant: il sole, il sale.

“A” and “an” follow the same logic, with four forms: un for most masculine nouns, even before a vowel (un libro, un amico); uno where lo would go (uno studente, uno zaino); una for feminine nouns (una casa, una scuola); and un’ with an apostrophe before a feminine noun that starts with a vowel (un’amica, un’ora). The apostrophe tells you the noun is feminine: un amico, but un’amica.

Articles are used more than in English: il caffè è buono (coffee is good), l’Italia, la mia casa (my house). One family member in the singular drops it: mia madre, mio fratello, but i miei fratelli (and la loro madre, la mia mamma).

Prepositions that join the article

Five short prepositions fuse with a following definite article into one word: di (of), a (to, at), da (from, at someone’s), in (in) and su (on). Di + il becomes del; in + la becomes nella. Learn to recognise the shapes; you will see them in every sentence.

	il	lo	l’	la	i	gli	le
di	del	dello	dell’	della	dei	degli	delle
a	al	allo	all’	alla	ai	agli	alle
da	dal	dallo	dall’	dalla	dai	dagli	dalle
in	nel	nello	nell’	nella	nei	negli	nelle
su	sul	sullo	sull’	sulla	sui	sugli	sulle

In use: il libro del professore (the teacher’s book), vado al mare (I’m going to the seaside), torno dall’ufficio (I’m coming back from the office), le chiavi sono nella borsa (the keys are in the bag), il gatto è sul letto (the cat is on the bed). Del and its family also mean “some”: Vorrei del pane, “I’d like some bread”. The other prepositions, such as con and per, stay separate: con il treno, per la mamma.

Common mistakes

• Essere for hunger and age. Sono fame and sono trenta anni are wrong: ho fame, ho trent’anni.
• Voglio when you mean vorrei. Voglio un caffè is understood, but sounds blunt from a customer. Vorrei is the everyday polite form.
• Regularising an irregular. The io form of andare is vado, not ando; of fare it is faccio; of venire it is vengo.
• Il before s + consonant or z. Il studente and il zaino are wrong: lo studente, lo zaino, and in the plural gli.
• An apostrophe on the masculine. Un’amico is wrong; only feminine nouns take un’.

Your next four days

Day	Trainer and chooser	Outside the page
1	Essere and avere only	Say five true sentences: who you are, where you are from, what you have, how old you are, whether you are hungry.
2	Add andare, fare, dare, stare	Say what you are doing today and where you are going.
3	The modal verbs; then ten nouns in the article chooser	Say three things you want, can and must do this week.
4	Everything; then the article chooser in all three modes	Name ten things in your room, each with its article.

What sticks

• Learn essere, avere, andare, fare, dare, stare, volere, potere, dovere and sapere as blocks; noi still ends in -iamo except siamo.
• Avere is used for hunger, thirst, cold, sleepiness, fear and age: ho fame, ho trent’anni.
• C’è and ci sono mean there is and there are; stare is for how you are and for -ing (sto mangiando).
• Vorrei is the polite “I would like”.
• -o is usually masculine and -a feminine, with known exceptions (la mano, il problema); -e can be either.
• Masculine il and i become lo and gli before s + consonant, z, gn, ps and (gli, l’) before vowels; un’ with an apostrophe is only feminine.
• Di, a, da, in and su fuse with the article: del, al, dal, nel, sul.