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26 / Webster’s New World 575+ Italian Verbs

Future Perfect with avere Future Perfect with essere
(io) avrò lavorato/ricevuto/dormito sarò arrivato/arrivata
(tu) avrai lavorato/ricevuto/dormito sarai arrivato/arrivata
(lui/lei) avrà lavorato/ricevuto/dormito sarà arrivato/arrivata
(noi) avremo lavorato/ricevuto/dormito saremo arrivati/arrivate
(voi) avrete lavorato/ricevuto/dormito sarete arrivati/arrivate
(loro) avranno lavorato/ricevuto/dormito saranno arrivati/arrivate

PAST DEFINITE

The definite past, passato remoto, like the present perfect, passato prossimo,
expresses an action which was completed in the past. Students of Italian are
advised to use the present perfect (passato prossimo) in everyday conversation and
to learn the forms of the past definite in order to understand them and to recog-
nize them when they are used, mainly in literature.

Forming the past definite

The passato remoto, the definite past, is a one-word tense and it is formed by drop-
ping the infinitive ending –are, -ere, and –ire and adding the appropriate ending, as
shown in Table 10 to the remaining stem. The ending is different for each person.

Table 10 The Past Definite
Drop –are –ere –ire
(io) –ai –ei (-etti) –ii
(tu) –asti –esti –isti
(lui/lei/Lei) –ò –é (-ette) –ì
(noi) –ammo –emmo –immo
(voi) –aste –este –iste
(loro) –arono –erono (–ettero) –irono

For example:
parlare: parlai, parlasti, parlò, parlammo, parlaste, parlarono
credere: credei (credetti), credesti, credé (credette), credemmo, credeste,
crederono (credettero)
capire: capii, capisti, capì, capimmo, capiste, capirono

For reflexive verbs, simply place the reflexive pronoun before the verb (mi alzai, si
chinò, ci capimmo).
Note that:
• The lui/lei regular forms are stressed and have an accent mark on the final
vowel (except –ette).
• The loro form has the stress on the third vowel from the end, for example
parLArono, creDEttero, and caPIrono.
• The regular –ere verbs have two possible different forms for io/lui-lei/loro.