Il passato prossimo

Passato Prossimo
If you want to talk about what you did yesterday, last summer, or even five minutes ago, the Passato Prossimo is your best friend. It is the most commonly used past tense in spoken Italian.

The Passato Prossimo is a "compound" tense, which means it is always made of two words:
HOW TO BUILD THE PASSATO PROSSIMO

The Passato Prossimo is a "compound" tense, which means it is always made of two words:

  1. The Auxiliary: the present tense of either avere (to have) or essere (to be)
  2. The Participio Passato (Past Participle): the main verb with a specific ending based on its group:
-are verbs become -ato [mangiare (to eat) → ho mangiato]
-ere verbs become -uto [cadere (to fall) → sono caduto]
-ire verbs become -ito [capire (to understand) → capito]



THE AGREEMENT RULE WITH "ESSERE"

When you use "essere" as your auxiliary verb, the past participle acts a bit like an adjective: it must agree in gender and number with the subject of the sentence.
This means the ending of the verb changes to "match" the person you are talking about.
E.g.:
Marco è andato a scuola. (masculine singular) (Marco went to school)
Elena è andata a scuola. (feminine singular) (Elena went to school)
I ragazzi sono andati a scuola. (masculine plural) (The boys went to school)
Le ragazze sono andate a scuola. (feminine plural) (The girls went to school)
ESERCIZIO
Let's conjugate three regular verbs with different endings: amare (to love), cadere (to fall), finire (to finish):
ESERCIZIO
THE REBELS: IRREGULAR PAST PARTICIPLES

While the standard rules (-ato, -uto, -ito) cover the majority of Italian verbs, some of the most frequently used words in the language like to break the rules. These are the Irregular Past Participles.

Think of these as the "celebrities" of the Italian language — they don't follow the crowd, but you'll see them everywhere!
ESERCIZI