ITALIAN PRESENT TENSE

The Italian present tense, which is called “Indicativo presente”, is one of the most used verbal tenses in Italian, and one of the easiest to learn.

Here’s our complete guide to using the Italian “Indicativo presente”, with lots of real-life examples

MEANINGS AND EXAMPLES

The present indicative is one of the simplest and most commonly used verb tenses in Italian. This verbal form is used to express different meanings:

1. Actions taking place at the time of speaking:

2. Habitual actions:

3. Future actions: usually in informal contexts. The future setting is conveyed by time indications.

4. General statements, or facts

5. Something that happened in the past (this form is called historical present and can be used to make your story more entertaining. It can be used in informal contexts, to tell a personal story, or in formal contexts to talk about historical facts):

As you probably already know, in Italian there are 3 conjugations, according to the verb’s ending in its infinite form. Let’s now look at how to form the simple present in every conjugation (for regular verbs).

1ST CONJUGATION

Verbs belonging to the 1st conjugation are the ones that end in -are. The present tense of regular verbs is formed by dropping the infinitive ending –are and adding the appropriate ending, according to the person.

Here’s a list of the most used regular verbs belonging to the 1st conjugation:

Verbs ending in -care or -gare maintain the same pronunciation of c and g that they have in the infinitive; to render this pronunciation, an h is added before the i:

Verbs ending in -ciare, -giare, and -sciare lose the i in front of endings beginning with an i (there would be two i if that didn’t happen):

2ND CONJUGATION

Verbs belonging to the 2nd conjugation are the ones that end in -ere. The present tense of regular verbs is formed by dropping the infinitive ending –ere and adding the appropriate ending, according to the person.

Here’s a list of the most used regular verbs belonging to the 2nd conjugation:

Verbs ending in -cere and -gere change the pronunciation of c and g in front of desinences beginning with an o

There are some exceptions, like:

3RD CONJUGATION

Verbs belonging to the 3rd conjugation are the ones that end in -ire. The present tense of regular verbs is formed by dropping the infinitive ending –ire and adding the appropriate ending, according to the person.

Here’s a list of the most used regular verbs belonging to the 3rd conjugation:

Many verbs of the 3rd conjugation, such as capire, finire, guarire, punire, agire, costruire, ferire, finire, fornire, impedire, preferire, rapire, tradire, insert -isc- between the root and the desinence of the 1st, 2nd and 3rd singular persons and the 3rd person plural of the indicative present:

The present indicative tense is the most basic Italian verbal tense, but it’s also very versatile and can be used to convey different meanings. Start practicing with some regular verbs, and in no time you’ll be able to say a lot of things in Italian!

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