If you’re on a mission to improve your Italian, then you’ll quickly find that being able to talk about things in the past is very important. After all, how else will you be able to tell your friends about what you did on holiday or share the story of how you ordered that perfect plate of pasta in Florence? That is why you need to learn the past tense in Italian! 

In this blog post, we’re going to dive into the basics of it — but don’t worry, it’s not as scary as it sounds! We’ll focus on some of the most common ways to talk about the past using il passato prossimo. 

This tense will help you express most of what you need when discussing past actions and experiences. Ready? Let’s get started. Don’t forget to listen to the episode to gain more insight into pronunciation and vocabulary.

Past tense in Italian: What is il passato prossimo and when to use it?

Il passato prossimo is similar to the simple past in English. This is the past tense in Italian you’ll use when talking about actions that happened at a specific moment — things you’ve done, events that occurred, or changes that happened.

It is one of the most common forms of past tenses used in the language. 

Forming the passato prossimo

Now, let’s talk about how to actually build this past tense in Italian. Don’t worry! It’s not complicated once you get the hang of it! You’ll need two parts:

• an auxiliary verb, either essere to be or avere to have;
• the past participle of the main verb.

Most verbs use avere, but some verbs — mainly those that describe movement or change of state use essere. The second piece of this past tense in Italian is the past participle. This is the form of the main verb that represents the action itself.

For most verbs, it’s pretty easy to form: 

• -are verbs, like mangiare, you replace -are with -ato
  • mangiare → mangiato 
• -ire verbs, like dormire, you replace -ire with -ito
  • dormire → dormito slept
• -ere verbs, like ricevere, you replace the -ere with -uto 
  • ricevere  → ricrvuto received 

Most verbs regularly form the past participle, like the ones we just saw. But, of course, Italian wouldn’t be Italian without a few irregular verbs to keep us on our toes! Especially for verbs ending in -ere.

Here are a few common irregular past participles you’ll likely come across:

• fare to do/make → fatto
• essere to be → stato
• vedere to see → visto
• dire to say → detto

You’ll pick these up as you go along, and with practice, they’ll become second nature!

Past tense in Italian practice time

Now that you understand the passato prossimo a little better, how about checking examples? For the verb imparare to learn we use avere as the auxiliary verb:

• Abbiamo imparato molto! We learned a lot!
• Ho letto quel libro. I read that book.

Now, let’s focus on the verb essere as the auxiliary: 

• Sono andato/a al cinema. I went to the cinema.
• Siete tornati/e tardi? Did you all return late?

Easy, right? Keep in mind that with essere, the past participle has to agree in gender and number with the subject. So if you’re talking about yourself (and you’re female), you’d say sono andata instead of sono andato.

Try forming a few sentences using this past tense in Italian, starting with simple actions like ho mangiato or sono andato/a.

And there you have it! A beginner’s guide to using the passato prossimo in Italian. Whether you’re talking about your day, your favourite holiday, or what you ate for lunch, this tense will be your go-to for expressing what you’ve done. Keep practising, and soon enough, you will use it with your eyes closed.

To continue learning Italian, don’t miss out on Coffee Break Italian Season 2. In the lessons, you will expand your beginner-level knowledge, learning more about irregular verbs, demonstrative adjectives and useful vocabulary for daily conversations!