Pronominal verbs: farcela, andarsene, cavarsela
B2 I verbi pronominali: farcela, andarsene, cavarsela 42 / 53
In short
Some very common Italian verbs come with one or two little pronouns welded on and an idiomatic meaning you could never guess from the parts: andarsene (to leave, clear off), farcela (to manage, to cope), cavarsela (to get by). Learn them like vocabulary, clitics and all. You never swap the welded pronouns; where the front clitic is a person pronoun, it is the only piece that changes: me ne vado, te ne vai, me la cavo, te la cavi. In farcela and avercela even the front ce is welded on, so nothing but the verb ending moves: ce la faccio, ce la fai, ce la facciamo.
The rule
You already own every pronoun in these verbs: the reflexive si of step 20, the particles ci and ne of step 28, and the vowel shift mi -> me / ci -> ce of step 30. This lesson adds no new pronoun rules. It adds a handful of fixed lexical items where those pronouns have frozen solid and stopped meaning anything on their own.
Step 1 - Look them up whole. The dictionary entry is andarsene, not andare; farcela, not fare. The clitics are part of the word. You never trade la for lo, or ne for ci - they are cemented in.
Step 2 - Conjugate the base verb, keep the clitics. Under the shell, andarsene is just andare, farcela is fare, cavarsela is cavare. Conjugate that verb for your subject and carry the two pronouns along: fare -> faccio -> ce la faccio.
Step 3 - Only the front pronoun moves. The person-pronoun changes and opens its vowel before the next clitic; the la or ne never budges: me la cavo, te la cavi, se la cava. That single moving piece is the whole conjugation.
Step 4 - The compound tense splits into two families. How the participle agrees depends on whether the frozen shell hides a la - see below.
What is welded onto each verb
| Verb | Base | Welded clitics | Meaning |
|---|---|---|---|
| andarsene | andare | se + ne | to leave, go away, clear off |
| farcela | fare | ce + la | to manage, to cope, to make it |
| cavarsela | cavare | se + la | to get by, to manage, to cope |
| prendersela | prendere | se + la | to get upset, to take it to heart |
| smetterla | smettere | la | to stop it, to knock it off |
| avercela (con) | avere | ce + la | to be angry at, to have it in for |
The two compound-tense families
The frozen la is grammatically feminine singular. When a verb carries it, the participle is stuck on -a forever, no matter who is speaking:
- farcela takes avere (from fare), participle frozen as fatta: ce l’ho fatta, ce l’hai fatta, ce l’hanno fatta - a man says ce l’ho fatta too.
- cavarsela, prendersela take essere (they hold a reflexive si), but the participle agrees with the welded la, not the subject: me la sono cavata, se l’è presa - said by anyone.
andarsene has no hidden la. It behaves like any reflexive verb of motion from step 20: essere, and the participle agrees with the subject: Marco se n’è andato, Anna se n’è andata, se ne sono andati.
Elision
Only la and ne elide, exactly as they do alone. la drops before ho/hai/ha…: ce la ho fatta -> ce l’ho fatta, se la è presa -> se l’è presa. ne drops before è: se ne è andato -> se n’è andato. The front pronoun (me, te, se, ce, ve) never elides.
Forms & patterns
Present tense - watch only the front pronoun change:
| Person | andarsene | farcela | cavarsela |
|---|---|---|---|
| io | me ne vado | ce la faccio | me la cavo |
| tu | te ne vai | ce la fai | te la cavi |
| lui/lei | se ne va | ce la fa | se la cava |
| noi | ce ne andiamo | ce la facciamo | ce la caviamo |
| voi | ve ne andate | ce la fate | ve la cavate |
| loro | se ne vanno | ce la fanno | se la cavano |
Compound tense - the two agreement families side by side:
| Verb | Auxiliary | Agrees with | Man says | Woman says |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| andarsene | essere | the subject | se n’è andato | se n’è andata |
| cavarsela | essere | the frozen la | me la sono cavata | me la sono cavata |
| prendersela | essere | the frozen la | se l’è presa | se l’è presa |
| farcela | avere | the frozen la | ce l’ho fatta | ce l’ho fatta |
Placement - the whole cluster travels as one block, like any pronoun (step 30):
| Form | Example |
|---|---|
| conjugated verb | Me ne vado. / Ce la faccio. |
| negation | Non me ne vado. / Non ce la faccio. |
| modal + infinitive | Me ne devo andare. = Devo andarmene. |
| infinitive | Spero di farcela. / Preferisco andarmene. |
| informal imperative | Vattene! / Andiamocene! / Smettila! |
| gerund | Andandomene, ho chiuso la porta. |
Examples
- Non ce la faccio più, sono troppo stanco. I can’t take it anymore, I’m too tired.
- Alla fine ce l’ho fatta: ho superato l’esame. In the end I made it: I passed the exam.
- È tardi, me ne vado. It’s late, I’m off.
- Se n’è andata senza salutare nessuno. She left without saying goodbye to anyone.
- Come va il nuovo lavoro? Me la cavo. How’s the new job going? I’m getting by.
- Non te la prendere, era solo uno scherzo. Don’t take it to heart, it was just a joke.
- Smettila di lamentarti e aiutami. Stop complaining and help me.
- Perché ce l’hai con me? Non ho fatto niente. Why are you angry at me? I didn’t do anything.
- Con l’inglese me la cavo abbastanza bene. I get by pretty well in English.
- Vattene! Non voglio più discutere. Go away! I don’t want to argue anymore.
Common mistakes
- Mi ne vado adesso. -> Me ne vado adesso. Before ne the pronoun mi opens to me - the same vowel shift as every combined pronoun in step 30. It is never mi ne.
- Non ce l’ho fatto. -> Non ce l’ho fatta. The welded la is grammatically feminine, so the participle is always fatta - the speaker’s own gender is irrelevant.
- Maria se n’è andato. -> Maria se n’è andata. andarsene hides no la; like any motion verb with essere it agrees with the subject, so a woman who left is andata.
- Da solo me la sono cavato. -> Da solo me la sono cavata. cavarsela does carry a frozen la, and that la - not the subject - drives the agreement. Even a man says cavata.
- Smettilo di urlare! -> Smettila di urlare! The welded clitic in this idiom is la, not lo. It is fixed and never changes to match anything.
Tips
- Learn them as vocabulary, not as grammar. These are dictionary headwords with their clitics soldered on. You look up andarsene, farcela, cavarsela whole, and you never take the pronouns apart or swap them.
- Two agreement families, decided by one question: is there a hidden la? If yes (farcela, cavarsela, prendersela, smetterla), the participle is frozen feminine singular - fatta, cavata, presa - whoever speaks. If no (andarsene), it is an ordinary reflexive and agrees with the subject.
- Only the person-pronoun moves. When you conjugate, the la or ne stays put and just the front clitic changes person and opens its vowel: me la cavo, te la cavi, se la cava.
- Memorise the high-frequency phrases whole: non ce la faccio più, ce l’ho fatta!, me ne vado, vattene!, me la cavo, non te la prendere, smettila!, ce l’hai con me?