08 Intermezzo (1 Viewer)

[Martin]

Theory: The verbs essere and avere

The two most important verbs are essere (to be) and avere (to have), not only because they are used a great deal, but also because they form compound tenses (think about how in English we say "I have done it", we will see examples of this soon).

The way that a verb changes depending on who is performing the action is called conjugation. Here is the conjugation for essere:

• io sono ~ I am
• tu sei ~ you are
• lui/lei è ~ he/she is
• noi siamo ~ we are
• voi siete ~ you are (as in "you guys")
• loro sono ~ they are

And avere:

• io ho ~ I have
• tu hai ~ you have
• lui/lei ha ~ he/she has
• noi abbiamo ~ we have
• voi avete ~ you have
• loro hanno ~ they have

Don't do anything crazy like trying to memorize these. Noone is going to wake you up in the middle of the night to quiz you on this (or if they do, you might have crazy neighbors). The whole point of having a course like this is so that you see these things repeated many times and eventually you just remember them without trying to.

Theory: The verb families -are, -ere, -ire

Italian verbs are quite regular, which means that they follow the rules to a large extent. What rules? We have seen many verbs so far and we can group them by the ending they have:

• cominciare, giocare, stare, scusare
• avere, essere, dovere, nascondere, parere, potere, prendere, sapere, volere
• sentire

What is meant by rules is that verbs of each group have common endings:

• io gioco / nascondo / sento
• tu giochi / nascondi / senti
• lui/lei gioca / nasconde / sente
• noi giochiamo / nascondiamo / sentiamo
• voi giocate / nascondete / sentite
• loro giocano / nascondono / sentono

As you can see, essere and avere are wildly irregular and this (sadly) tends to be the case with the most common verbs in many languages. But once you have conquered this shore of irregularity, you have a big inland landscape where life is quite safe and predictable.

 

Buy on AliExpress.com

[Quetzalcoatl]

The conjugation for voi and loro always give me trouble in any language (except Ingrish).

 

[Martin]

The conjugation for voi and loro always give me trouble in any language (except Ingrish).

Probably because you use them less frequently. At least as you learn a language you tend to talk about yourself a lot, and talk to a person in a conversation, rarely address a group of people.

 

[Mohad]

Damn, we are in lesson 8 already! I need time to catch up with you.

I hate night shifts.

 

[Martin]

Damn, we are in lesson 8 already! I need time to catch up with you.

I hate night shifts.

You can take your time, post in the other threads, you don't have to stay current with the latest here.

 

[Mohad]

I will do my best, though my time is so limited.

I really appreciate your effort, Marty. Keep it up.

 

[Martin]

I will do my best, though my time is so limited.

I really appreciate your effort, Marty. Keep it up.

Generally in language study it's not good to do a bunch of stuff all at once, better to spread it out over small chunks. You learn much better that way. And there is no deadline here, so don't worry.

 

[blondu]

nice lesson martin

 

[IliveForJuve]

Thanks Martin, this lesson cleared some doubts I had.

 

[blondu]

scusaro
scusari
scusa/scusara?
scusiamo/scusamo?
scusiate
scusano

 

[Martin]

scusaro
scusari
scusa/scusara?
scusiamo/scusamo?
scusiate
scusano

scusare is a nice and regular verb. So what you do is you take off the ending are and put on the ending according to the conjugation:

scus-o
scus-i
scus-a
scus-iamo
scus-ate
scus-ano

Simple, no?

 

[blondu]

yes..i haven't seen the part in which you have to take the termination off :embarasse