Tag Archives: Quando with Imperfetto or Passato Prossimo

The Italian Verb Avere The Italian verb avere means to have, and, of course, is an essential Italian verb to know. Avere serves an important function alone and also as an “assistant,” or auxiliary verb, for  compound verbs. (A compound verb is created from two or more verbs.) In our last blog, we focused on the present tense of avere and gave the full present tense conjugation, noting that all forms are irregular except for the voi form. The present tense conjugation is listed again below.  The irregular forms are brown and the regular voi form is green.  The accented syllables …

Combining the Imperfetto with the Passato Prossimo   Choosing an Italian Past Tense Let’s start our blog about how to combine the imperfetto with the passato prossimo by reviewing some general rules of Italian grammar. We learned in “Picking an Italian Past Tense” that the circumstances surrounding the event will determine which Italian past tense to use. Luckily, imbedded in many Italian sentences about past events are certain words and phrases that will  indicate whether the imperfetto or the passato prossimo is needed.  The intent of the speaker will be signaled by these phrases, which will then trigger use of the correct …