Irregular Verbs: Complete Reference

This is the lookup reference for Italian irregular verbs. The Italian irregular system is famously rich, but it is also famously clustered: irregularity falls into a small number of repeating patterns, and once you know the patterns you can predict most forms. This page lists the ~100 high-frequency verbs that account for almost everything you will encounter, organized by family.

For each verb, the page gives the diagnostic forms that let you reconstruct everything else:

• presente (1sg) — diagnoses the present-tense paradigm
• passato remoto (1sg) — diagnoses the literary past, including the famous "1-3-3" hidden-stem pattern
• participio passato — needed for every compound tense
• futuro (1sg) — diagnoses the futuro and the conditional (which share a stem)
• congiuntivo presente (1sg) — diagnoses the present subjunctive

If a verb is regular in a given column, the cell shows the form anyway so you can see at a glance where the irregularity is and where it isn't.

Group 1 — The two essentials: essere and avere

These are the most irregular verbs in Italian and the auxiliaries of every compound tense. They must be memorized in full.

Group 2 — Irregular -are verbs (a small, closed set)

The -are class is so regular that the irregulars are easy to enumerate: just andare, dare, fare, stare (plus their compounds: rifare, disfare, soddisfare, andarsene, ridare, ristare etc.).

Notes: fare is historically a Latin -ere verb (facere) and behaves like one — its imperfetto is facevo, its gerundio facendo. Andare is suppletive (different roots in the present): vado / andiamo. Dare and stare share many irregular endings, which is why you see diedi / stetti, dia / stia.

Group 3 — Irregular -ire verbs

Most -ire verbs are regular or follow the -isco pattern. The genuine irregulars are few but extremely common.

Notes: venire shows the same -ng- extension in 1sg/3pl present and the same future contraction (verrò) as several other verbs. Aprire, offrire, soffrire, scoprire, coprire form an -erto participle group (aperto, offerto, sofferto, scoperto, coperto) that is the only irregularity for many speakers. Sentire and dormire are listed for completeness — they are fully regular and serve as the standard -ire model.

Group 4 — The hidden-stem family (-ere verbs with passato remoto in 1-3-3 pattern)

This is the largest and most important irregular family. These verbs share a single template:

• Present: usually regular, sometimes with a stem change
• Past participle: typically irregular, ending in -so, -sso, -tto etc.
• Passato remoto: irregular only in 1sg, 3sg, 3pl; the other forms are regular. The irregular forms share a "hidden" stem and end in -i / -e / -ero.

Example: prendere → presi, prese, presero (1sg/3sg/3pl) but prendesti, prendemmo, prendeste (regular).

For the full theoretical treatment, see hidden-stem verbs in the present and hidden-stem verbs in the passato remoto.

Group 5 — The -gliere family

Verbs ending in -gliere all conjugate the same way: the stem alternates between -gli- (before front vowels) and -lg- (before back vowels and consonants).

Group 6 — Verbs from contracted Latin infinitives (bere, dire, porre, trarre and family)

These verbs derive from Latin infinitives with hidden stems (Lat. bibere, dicere, ponere, trahere). The "real" stem is visible in most tenses, but the modern infinitive has been shortened — bere, dire, porre, trarre. They are all very high frequency. Fare (← facere) belongs to the same family historically and is repeated here for completeness, even though it was already listed under the irregular -are verbs above.

The trick to these is to find the hidden stem and then conjugate as if it were a regular -ere verb in most tenses. For example, bere behaves as bev-ere: imperfetto bevevo, gerundio bevendo, congiuntivo imperfetto bevessi.

For deep treatment, see hidden-stem verbs in the present.

Group 7 — The -urre / -durre family

Verbs ending in -durre (and the broader -urre family, including addurre, dedurre, indurre, introdurre, produrre, ridurre, sedurre, tradurre, condurre) derive from Latin -ducere and follow a uniform paradigm. The hidden stem is -duc-.

Group 8 — Other irregular verbs worth memorizing

A handful of additional verbs do not fit the previous patterns cleanly and just need to be learned individually.

Diagnostic patterns to internalize

Once you have looked at the lists above, the following recurring patterns become unmistakable:

1. The "1-3-3" rule for the passato remoto: an irregular verb is irregular only in 1sg, 3sg, and 3pl, with regular endings -i / -e / -ero and stress on the root. The other three forms (2sg, 1pl, 2pl) are fully regular. Once you learn presi, you can predict prendesti, prendemmo, prendeste, presero.

2. Past participle ↔ passato remoto link: many verbs that have -si in the passato remoto have -so / -sso in the participle (presi → preso, scrissi → scritto, lessi → letto). Learn the two together.

3. Future ↔ conditional share a stem: any irregularity in the futuro 1sg applies to the entire conditional. Verrò → verrei / verresti / verrebbe / verremmo / verreste / verrebbero.

4. The -ng- intrusion in 1sg/3pl present: many verbs insert -ng- in 1sg and 3pl present (tenere → tengo, tengono; venire → vengo, vengono; salire → salgo, salgono; valere → valgo, valgono; rimanere → rimango, rimangono). These same verbs typically have a contracted future (terrò, verrò, varrò, rimarrò).

5. Compound tenses are exactly as irregular as the participle. Once you have visto, you have ho visto, avevo visto, avrò visto, avrei visto, abbia visto, avessi visto — six tenses for the price of one form.

Common mistakes

Key takeaways

The Italian irregular system clusters into a small number of recurring patterns. Mastering ~100 verbs (the ones above) covers nearly all the irregularity you will ever meet.

1. The two essentials — essere, avere — must be memorized completely; everything else builds on them.
2. The four irregular -are verbs — andare, dare, fare, stare — are a closed set.
3. The -ire irregulars — venire, uscire, salire, morire, aprire family — are few and clustered.
4. The largest group is the hidden-stem -ere verbs: prendere, scrivere, leggere, mettere, vedere, vivere, conoscere, nascere, piacere, cadere, tenere, volere, potere, dovere, sapere, rimanere. Learn them by the "1-3-3" rule of the passato remoto and the participle-passato-remoto link.
5. The -gliere, -urre, -orre families share uniform paradigms — learn one, get them all.

For tense-specific deep dives, follow the related links. For a single-page conjugation matrix across every tense and mood, see all tenses at a glance.