Past Participle in Italian




The past participle is a nonfinite verb form used to form compound tenses with the help of the auxiliary verbs "essere" (to be) and "avere" (to have). It is built like the present perfect in English (example: "I have gone").


In Italian, the past participle agrees with the subject's gender and number (masculine, feminine, singular and plural) when it is used with the auxiliary verb "essere", but not with "avere":
    I miei genitori sono partiti (my parents left)
    Le mie amiche sono andate al concerto (my girlfriends went to the concert)
    Tua sorella è uscita? (Did your sister leave?)
    Ho letto un libro (I read a book)


Usually, the past participle is formed by adding a suffix to the verb root, according to the ending of the verb:

Verbs ending with "are" form the past participle with the suffix "ato"
amare/amato (love/loved), giocare/giocato (play/played), parlare/parlato (speak/spoken)

Verbs ending with "ere" form the past participle with the suffix "uto"
avere/avuto (have/had), volere/voluto (want/wanted), tenere/tenuto (keep/kept)

Verbs ending with "ire" form the past participle with the suffix "ito"
partire/partito (leave/left), dormire/dormito (sleep/slept), finire/finito (finish/finished)



Exceptions to the general rules

Verbs ending with "are" are usually regular but an exception is the verb "fare" (to do): its past participle is formed with "tto", so that it becomes "fatto" (done).

The verbs ending with "ere" with the accent on the second-to-last syllable are usually regular, but there are some exceptions that form the past participle with "so" and "sto":
perdere/perso (lose/lost), vedere/visto (see/seen)

The verbs ending with "ere" with the accent on the third-to-last syllable are mostly irregular, in fact they can create the past participle with -so, -sso, -to, -tto and -sto:
fondere/fuso (melt/melted), concedere/concesso (grant/granted), vivere/vissuto (live/lived), rompere/rotto (break/broken), porre/posto (place/placed)

The verbs ending with "ire" are usually regular but there are some exceptions when the suffix "rire" is preceded by a consonant the past participle becomes "erto":
scoprire/scoperto (find/found), aprire/aperto (open/opened)

Or when the suffix "rire" is preceded by a vowel the past participle becomes "rso":
apparire/apparso (appear/appeared)


Lastly, there are those verbs that are completely irregular like morire/morto (die/dead) and venire/venuto (come/come).


Past Participle in Italian
Start Exercise >>