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Verb Usage Review / 15

If the verb is conjugated with essere, the past participle agrees with the subject of
the sentence in gender and in number. There are four possible forms:
Singular Plural
Masculine –o –i
Feminine –a –e
Giulio è andato. Giulio has gone/Giulio went.
Giulio e Anna sono andati.* Giulio and Anna have gone/Giulio and
Anna went.
Anna è andata. Anna has gone/Anna went.
Anna e Silvia sono andate. Anna and Silvia have gone/Anna and
Silvia went.

* If the subject includes both masculine and feminine, the past participle will be
masculine –i.

The Indicative Mood

The indicative mood allows you to express or indicate facts. It is used for ordinary
statements and questions. It is the most commonly used mood in everyday conver-
sation. There are four simple and four corresponding compound tenses:

Simple Tenses Compound Tenses
Present (presente) Present perfect (passato prossimo)
Imperfect (imperfetto) Past perfect (trapassato prossimo)
Future (futuro) Future perfect (futuro anteriore)
Past definite (passato remoto) Past anterior (trapassato remoto)

THE PRESENT TENSE
The present indicative is a simple tense that expresses what is happening now. It
is equivalent to the English present tense (“I work”, “I do work”) and the English
present progressive (“I am working”). The Italian present tense expresses:
• Actions that take place habitually:
Prendo un caffè tutte le mattine. I have a coffee every morning.
• Actions taken at the moment of speaking:

Vado a casa adesso. I am going home now.
• Actions planned for the near future. Usually there is another word in the
sentence that indicates a future time:
Arrivano tra due ore. They’re arriving in two hours.
Quest’estate vado al mare. This summer I’ll be going to the beach.