In short

The passato prossimo is how Italians talk about the past in everyday speech, and it is built from two pieces: the present tense of avere or essere, plus the past participle (ho mangiato, sono andato). Almost every verb takes avere; a short, learnable list takes essere - and with essere the participle agrees with the subject, exactly like an adjective.

The rule

The passato prossimo covers both English past tenses: ho mangiato is I ate, I have eaten and I did eat. Do not look for three different Italian forms - there is one, and it is this one.

Build it in three steps.

• Step 1 - Make the past participle. Drop the infinitive ending and add the matching one: -are -> -ato (parlare -> parlato), -ere -> -uto (credere -> creduto), -ire -> -ito (finire -> finito). Roughly a third of the -ere verbs are irregular, so the table below is compulsory learning.
• Step 2 - Choose the auxiliary. Ask one question: does the verb take a direct object? If yes, it is transitive and takes avere - Ho letto il libro. If it has no object and belongs to the movement/change-of-state group, it takes essere - Sono partito.
• Step 3 - Deal with the ending of the participle. With avere the participle is frozen in -o: Maria ha mangiato, i ragazzi hanno mangiato. With essere it agrees with the subject in gender and number: Marco è andato, Anna è andata, i ragazzi sono andati, le ragazze sono andate.

Which verbs take essere

The essere group is short enough to memorise, and it is remarkably coherent: verbs of going and coming, of staying, and of being born, changing or dying - things that happen to the subject rather than things the subject does to something.

andare, venire, arrivare, partire, entrare, uscire, tornare, salire, scendere, cadere, restare, rimanere, stare, essere, nascere, morire, diventare, piacere, sembrare, succedere, costare, durare, riuscire.

essere and stare share one participle: stato. And essere takes itself as its own auxiliary: sono stato - I have been.

A handful of verbs sit in both camps depending on whether an object follows: cambiare, finire, cominciare, passare, correre, salire, scendere. Object -> avere; no object -> essere. Compare Ho finito il lavoro (I finished the work) with Il film è finito (The film ended).

Modal verbs

Potere, dovere and volere have no auxiliary of their own: they borrow the one belonging to the infinitive that follows. So mangiare takes avere -> Ho voluto mangiare; andare takes essere -> Sono voluto andare. When the modal borrows essere, the participle agrees with the subject as usual: Anna è dovuta partire.

In everyday speech you will hear avere used with modals across the board (ho dovuto andare). It is widely tolerated - but the rule above is what exams and careful writing expect.

Forms & patterns

The two auxiliaries in the present, plus a participle:

Regular participles - one ending per conjugation:

The irregular participles you cannot avoid. They cluster into a few shapes - learn them in these columns, not alphabetically:

Agreement, side by side - this is the whole difference:

Mixed company goes masculine plural: one man in the group is enough for -i.

Examples

Common mistakes

• Ho andato al cinema -> Sono andato al cinema - andare has no object: it belongs to the essere group. This is the single most frequent error at A2.
• Anna è arrivato -> Anna è arrivata - with essere the participle is an adjective in disguise and must match the subject: -o / -a / -i / -e.
• Maria ha mangiata la pizza -> Maria ha mangiato la pizza - with avere the participle never agrees with the subject or with a following object. It stays -o.
• Ho stato a Roma -> Sono stato a Roma - essere is its own auxiliary, and its participle is stato.
• Sono potuto finire il lavoro -> Ho potuto finire il lavoro - the modal copies the auxiliary of the infinitive, and finire with an object takes avere.

Tips

• The essere test in one line: if the verb can be followed by “something” (read something, eat something), it takes avere. If it describes the subject going, coming, staying, being born, changing or dying, it takes essere. Roughly 90% of verbs are in the avere camp - so learn the short list and default to avere.
• avere freezes, essere agrees. Two words to hang the whole lesson on. If you wrote essere, immediately check the last letter of the participle against your subject.
• Learn irregular participles in rhyming chains, never alphabetically: fatto - detto - letto - scritto - rotto; preso - chiuso - deciso - speso; visto - chiesto - risposto - rimasto. They stick as sound, not as a list.
• Verbs of movement with a destination still take essere: Sono andato a Milano - the a Milano is a place, not an object. Only a direct object (no preposition) points to avere.