English / Italiano

Passato prossimo or imperfetto

English “I ate” can use either Italian past tense. Use the passato prossimo for a completed event, and the imperfetto for an ongoing situation, habit, or description in the past. The timelines below show the difference.

Event or background

passato prossimo: a finished event, drawn as a dot or a closed barimperfetto: ongoing or repeated, drawn as an open band

Words that point to each tense

passato prossimo

a counted or dated event

ieri, stamattina, alle otto (yesterday, this morning, at eight)
una volta, due volte (once, twice)
all’improvviso (suddenly)
per due anni, tutto il giorno (for two years, all day): a period with a stated length

imperfetto

a scene, a habit, a state

mentre (while)
sempre, di solito, ogni giorno (always, usually, every day)
da bambino, da giovane (as a child, when I was young)
Age, weather, time, feelings: avevo dieci anni, faceva caldo, erano le tre

These words are hints, not rules. English gives a hint too: “was eating” and “used to eat” normally correspond to the imperfetto, while plain “ate” can be either.

Verbs whose meaning shifts

With sapere and conoscere the tense changes the natural English translation. With volere, potere and dovere the passato prossimo often implies that the action really happened, but that reading depends on context.

	Imperfetto		Passato prossimo		How firm
sapere	sapevo	I knew	ho saputo	I found out, I learned	clear shift
conoscere	conoscevo	I knew (a person)	ho conosciuto	I met, I got to know	clear shift
volere	volevo	I wanted to	ho voluto	I wanted to (often: and did)	tendency
potere	potevo	I could, I was able to	ho potuto	I was able to (often: and did)	tendency
dovere	dovevo	I had to, I was supposed to	ho dovuto	I had to (often: and did)	tendency

Imperfetto forms

The imperfetto is almost entirely regular. Take off -re and add -vo, -vi, -va, -vamo, -vate, -vano.

	parlare	prendere	dormire	essere
io	parlavo	prendevo	dormivo	ero
tu	parlavi	prendevi	dormivi	eri
lui / lei	parlava	prendeva	dormiva	era
noi	parlavamo	prendevamo	dormivamo	eravamo
voi	parlavate	prendevate	dormivate	eravate
loro	parlavano	prendevano	dormivano	erano

Essere is the main irregular verb. Fare, dire and bere use a longer stem: facevo, dicevo, bevevo.