While all the languages are believed to originate from one common Proto-Indo-European ancestor, present day English is a Germanic language, whereas Italian comes under Romance languages.
Learning individual Italian translations for words we use in daily is easy; learning how to make them coherent with verb tenses, less so.
In this blog, we shall discuss the most commonly used verb tenses in the Italian language.
Present Tense
Called Il Presente, this tense doesn’t have as many indicatives as English—not in regular use anyway.
For instance, you’ll use variations of io parlo for the following present indicatives of “talk”:
- Present Simple: “I talk” remains io parlo.
- Present Continuous: “I am talking” becomes sto parlando.
- Future Action: “I will talk” becomes parlerò.
- Near Future: “I am going to talk” becomes sto per parlare.
Perfect Past Tense
Called Il Passato, this tense is used to describe something that’s already happened at the time of speaking. It may or may not be linked to the present.
Io ho will be a common occurrence with past perfect utterances because it literally translates to “I have”, so:
- “I have read this book” is ho letto questo libro whether you read it adesso(now) or ieri. (yesterday)
- “I walked the dog” is ho portato a spasso il cane whether you walked it yesterday or (Just now)
Imperfect Past Tense
Called L’imperfetto, these tenses are applied to sentences that describe a past continuous action, as modal verbs, or for actions that don’t really taken place.
For example,
- Mia nonna era vecchia(“my nana was old”) doesn’t have more than the one helping verb (was) The adjective vecchia(old) does not clarify the timeline.
- On the other hand, quando ero giovane suonavo la chitarra (“I used to play the guitar when I was young”) doesn’t really specify a time in the speaker’s youth, rendering suanavo
Future Tense
Called Il Futuro, the future tense might be confused with the future reference made in the present tense. Il future actually refers to an uncertain future. Like the English word “must”, the Italian future tense uses “will” for making predictions, guessing, or showing resolve.
Let’s look at the following:
- “It must cost a lot” translates to costerà molto even though costerà literally translates to “it will cost”, and we know the speaker’s just guessing here, not describing a certain future.
Imperative Tense
The imperative presente present tense is used in informal Italian to give out orders or make a request. Its literal form is always the present tense, however, it’s not so much demanding action as it is action itself.
For example,
- “Pass me the salt” is passami il saleeven though there’s no passare(to pass) going on at present.
- “Stop the car” is fermal’auto even though the fermare bit is being requested rather than acted out.
Learn More Italian Verb Tenses with Short Stories
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