Present Perfect · 713c497945c32d7cf5863c0673dc8a67

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L'Hai Fatto Benissimo

To talk about the past in Italian, you need to do two things. First, you need to use the form of avere that matches who you're talking about.

	avere to have
io I	ho (I) have
tu you	hai (you) have
lui / lei he / she	ha (he / she) has
noi we	abbiamo (we) have
voi you all	avete (you all) have
loro they	hanno (they) have

Then you'll change the next verb ending to ‑ato, ‑uto, or ‑ito.

Noi abbiamo trovato l'automobile.
We found the car.

Non ho potuto.​
I could not.

Ho sentito una persona nella mia casa.
I heard a person in my house.

Usually, you’ll use ‑ato for verbs that end in ‑are (like trovare), ‑uto for ‑ere verbs (like potere), and ‑ito for ‑ire verbs (like sentire).

Avere or Essere?

Avere plus a verb is used to talk about the past; for example, hai parlato.

But for some verbs that talk about motion (like venire and andare), you’ll use essere instead of avere.

Sono andato allo stadio martedì sera.
I went to the stadium on Tuesday night.

Lui è venuto da solo.
He came alone.

Verbs that include extra little words, like mi sono ricordato, always use essere in the past.

Leave the Past Behind

Unlike verbs using avere in the past, verbs that use essere have different endings depending on who is doing what. Their endings work just like the Italian adjectives that you have already seen.

Lui è venuto a tavola.
He came to the table.

Lei è venuta da sola.
She came alone.

I ragazzi sono andati da soli.
The boys went by themselves.

Le ragazze sono arrivate alla stazione.
The girls arrived at the station.