Italian grammar, concisely
Short explanations with examples you can say straight away. Look up a topic whenever a lesson raises a question.
Subject pronouns
The Italian words for I, you, he, she, we and they — and why you usually leave them out.
Articles
The Italian words for the and a change according to the gender and first letter of the noun.
Noun gender
Every Italian noun is masculine or feminine, and the ending usually tells you which.
Plurals
Italian nouns form the plural by changing the final vowel, not by adding -s.
Adjective agreement
Italian adjectives change their ending to match the gender and number of the noun they describe.
Present tense
One Italian present tense covers both I speak and I am speaking.
-are verbs
The largest and most regular verb family: parlare, mangiare, abitare and thousands more.
-ere verbs
The second verb family: leggere, prendere, scrivere — with endings of their own.
-ire verbs
The third verb family: dormire, aprire, partire — plus a large group that inserts -isc-.
-isc- verbs
Many -ire verbs add -isc- in four of the six present-tense forms.
essere
The verb to be — the most irregular and most used verb in Italian.
avere
The verb to have — irregular, silent h, and the key to the past tense.
fare
The verb to do and to make — irregular, and the engine of dozens of everyday expressions.
Modal verbs
Volere, potere and dovere — want, can and must — attach directly to an infinitive.
Reflexive verbs
Verbs like alzarsi and svegliarsi carry a small pronoun that points the action back at the subject.
Passato prossimo
The everyday past tense: an auxiliary plus a past participle, like ho parlato.
avere vs essere
How to choose the right auxiliary verb in the passato prossimo.
Future tense
One set of endings, added to the infinitive, talks about the future.
Conditional for politeness
The conditional turns a demand into a request: vorrei, potrebbe, mi piacerebbe.
Direct object pronouns
Lo, la, li, le replace a thing or person directly affected by the verb.
Indirect object pronouns
Mi, ti, gli, le replace a person who receives something — to me, to you, to her.
Possessives
Mio, tuo, suo and friends agree with the thing owned, not with the owner.
Prepositions
Small words like a, di, da, in, con, su, per, tra and fra connect ideas — but not always the way English does.
Articulated prepositions
When a preposition meets the, Italian fuses them into one word: al, della, nel.
c’è and ci sono
C'è and ci sono are the Italian way to say there is and there are.
Comparisons
Più and meno compare things; di and che introduce what you compare them with.
Negation
Put non before the verb to make any sentence negative.
Questions
Yes-or-no questions need only rising intonation; information questions start with a question word.
Time and dates
Telling the time uses sono le plus the hour; dates use the ordinal primo and then plain numbers.
Numbers
Italian numbers are regular once you know the building blocks — and a few spellings to watch.