by Carolyn Henry

Created on: October 14, 2009

The passato prossimo is a very commonly used Italian verb tense used to express an action completed in the past. Once students of Italian have mastered the present tense of Italian verbs, the passato prossimo is usually the second tense they will learn.

Grammatically, the passato prossimo is a compound tense, which is to say that it is formed by adding a helping verb to the past participle of the main verb. This formation is similar to the English present perfect tense, as in I have bought. However, English speakers learning Italian should be aware that the Italian passato prossimo does not correspond in meaning to the English present perfect tense. In meaning, the passato prossimo corresponds roughly to the English simple past tense, as in I bought or I did buy.

The helping verb used in the formation of the passato prossimo is usually avere, though sometimes it is essere, and this disctiction is very important.

Learning the passato prossimo is much less overwhelming if it is approached step-by-step.

Step One: The passato prossimo with avere and a regular past participle.

Use a conjugated form of avere (to have) as the helping verb. The six conjugated forms of avere are: ho, hai, ha, abbiamo, avete and hanno.

Add to this the past participle of the verb. To form the past participle, simply change the ending of the infinitive verb. The rule here is that are becomes ato; -ire becomes ito; and ere becomes uto. Following this simple rule, parlare (to speak) in the passato prossimo would become ho parlato, hai parlato, ha parlato, abbiamo parlato, avete parlato, hanno parlato.

Step Two: The passato prossimo with avere and an irregular past participle.

Some past participles are not formed by simply changing the verb's infinitive ending to ato, ito or uto. Some past participles are irregular, and have to be memorized individually. Common irregular past participles include: aperto (opened), bevuto (drank), chiesto (asked), chiuso (closed), deciso (decided), fatto (done, made), letto (read), messo (placed), offerto (offered), perso (lost), risposto (answered), scritto (written), speso (spent) and visto (seen).

These irregular past participles work in the same way as the regular ones. They are simply added to a form of avere. Aprire (to open) in the passato prossimo becomes ho aperto, hai aperto, ha aperto, abbiamo aperto, avete aperto, hanno aperto.

Step Three: The passato prossimo with essere and a regular past participle.

A small number of verbs use essere rather

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