In Italian the verb essere – to be in English – is one of the irregular verbs of the language. This means that students who want to speak and write Italian language without mistakes should not forget to study this verb!
Let’s see which the conjugation of essere in the present tense is. Present tense is the first one that will be taught during Italian language courses, not only because it is one of the simplest tenses, but also because it can be very useful when students have to speak Italian.
Io sono
Tu sei
Egli è
Noi siamo
Voi siete
Essi sono
Differently from the verb avere – which is the verb to have in English – in the verb essere there is never the h. This makes the verb to be simpler than the verb to have, but students have to be careful with the third singular person, because it has the accent.
The letter è means is, instead the e without accent means and. So be careful when you write this letter, because the meaning of the sentence can become very different!
The verb essere is important also because it is necessary for some compound tenses, which are formed by two words. There are a lot of verbs that need essere for their compound tenses and the past participle always has to agree in number and gender with the subject of the sentence.
Let’s start with a simple example: the sentence I am tall can be translated Io sono alto. This is one of the simplest sentences that can be written using the verb essere, because this verb is here in the present tense.
As for compound tenses, the sentence we have become rich can be translated in Italian noi siamo diventati ricchi. In this case the verb is to become – diventare and the verb essere is used to form the compound tense.
The past participle is diventato, that here becomes diventati because it has to agree in gender and number with the subject we, that is male and plural.
In order to learn the verb essere, students can choose to join an Italian course to improve their language skills. Clidante is an Italian school in Rome and it is also one of the best schools in Italy: it has a lot of different courses and activities. People who want to become students of Clidante only have to fill the enrollment form with their personal information.
