PASSATO PROSSIMO
Formation:
The passato prossimo is a compound tense which means it is made up of more than
one verb. The p.p. is formed with the present tense of the helping verb (either avere or
essere) plus the past participle.
AVERE
ho
hai
ha
abbiamo
avete
hanno
ESSERE
sono
sei
è
siamo
siete
sono
Past participle formation:
To form a regular past participle you drop the infinitive ending off the verb and add the
following endings:
are -> ato
parlare -> parlato
ere -> uto
vendere -> venduto
ire -> ito
finire -> finito
Certain verbs will take essere and others avere. There are numerically more verbs that
take avere but many very very common verbs take essere. The auxiliary for each verb
must be memorized. There are some tendencies that can help you.
 All essere verbs are intransitive. That is-they can not take a direct object.
*note-but not all intransitive verbs take essere
 Many essere verbs deal with movement-coming and going etc.
Agreement with essere verbs
When conjugating a verb that takes essere the past participle will agree in gender and
number with the subject. This is not the case with avere verbs.
PARLARE
ho parlato
hai parlato
ha parlato
abbiamo parlato
avete parlato
hanno parlato
ANDARE
sono andato/a
sei andato/a
è andato/a
siamo andati/e
siete andati/e
sono andati/e
Translation:
The p.p. has 3 possible English translations.
ho parlato -> I spoke
I did speak
I have spoken