Hi, this is Mara from MosaLingua! Welcome to our grammar hacks series on how to learn Italian quickly. I already talked to you about verbs in a previous video lesson. We learned about regular verbs and the present tense. Today I’m going to give you some tips for memorizing irregular Italian verbs.

Irregular verbs in Italian

Irregular Verbs in Italian | Italian Grammar Hacks

Irregular Verbs in Italian | Italian Grammar Hacks (Video)

Irregular Verbs in Italian | Italian Grammar Hacks (Transcript)

The first things to learn in order to be able to speak are the most common verbs, like essere (to be), fare (to do), andare (to go). You don’t need to learn all of the irregular verbs at once. In this case, practice will help you remember, little by little, the different conjugations of the irregular verbs and memorize them quickly.

You may understand them more easily if you think about the irregular verbs in your native language. Let’s start with the most important Italian irregular verbs: essere (to be) and avere (to have). Here is the present tense of the verb essere: io sono / tu sei / lui-lei è / noi siamo / voi siete / essi sono. And the present for the verb avere: io ho / tu hai / lui-lei ha / noi abbiamo / voi avete / essi hanno.

Among other irregular verbs frequently used you have: the verb fare (to do): io faccio / tu fai / lui-lei fa / noi facciamo / voi fate / essi fanno. The verb andare (to go): io vado /tu vai / lui-lei va / noi andiamo / voi andate / essi vanno. As you can see, avere, essere, fare, and andare all have the same endings: -o / -ai / -a / -iamo / -ate / -anno, so the simplest thing to do is learn the irregular form of your verb instead of its endings.

Many past participles follow common rules, too. If you learn some of the verbs that belong to the same “family” you will be able to quickly and easily remember all the others that follow the same rules. Now let’s look at some examples of verbs that I’ve sorted into families that follow the same rules. “Ieri ho fatto i compiti di italiano, poi ho letto un libro e ho scritto una mail.”

“Il professore mi ha chiesto come ho imparato così bene l’italiano, ho risposto grazie a MosaLingua.” As you may notice with these examples, we can identify some verb families that follow the same rules. If you learn to conjugate one verb for each family, it’s a done deal. It’ll be easy for you to conjugate the rest of the verbs from that family.

Here’s a Summary of the Main Family Groups of Irregular Verbs in Italian

-TO fare, fatto (to do/done); scrivere, scritto (to write/written); leggere, letto (to read/read); dire, detto (to say/said).

-RTO offrire, offerto (to offer/offered); coprire, coperto (to cover/covered); morire, morto (to die/died);

NTO spegnere, spento (to switch off/switched off); aggiungere, aggiunto (to add/added); vincere, vinto (to win/won); dipingere, dipinto (to piano/painted).

-LTO scegliere, scelto (to choose/chosen); raccogliere, raccolto (to pick/picked)/;

-SO prendere, preso (to take/taken); accendere, acceso (to turn on/turned on); spendere, speso (to spend/spent); scendere, sceso (to go down/gone down); ridere, riso (to laugh/laughed); decidere, deciso (to decide/decided).

-STO vedere, visto (to see/seen); rispondere, risposto (to nswer/answered); chiedere, chiesto (to ask/asked).

-RSO perdere, perso (to lose/lost); correre, corso (to run/run).

-SSO mettere, messo (to put/put); succedere, successo (to happen/happened); discutere, discusso (to discuss/discussed).

Be careful, these verbs are also irregular: essere / stato (to be/been); venire / venuto (to come/come); nascere / nato (to be born); vivere/ vissuto (to lived/lived). In another lesson will teach you a trick for choosing the right auxiliary verb. Thanks a lot for watching this video! If you want to find out more about how to improve your Italian quickly and easily, click below. And if you haven’t yet, subscribe to our YouTube channel! A presto!