English / Italiano
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.
passato prossimo: a finished event, drawn as a dot or a closed barimperfetto: ongoing or repeated, drawn as an open band
a counted or dated event
a scene, a habit, a state
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.
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 |
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.