The seconda coniugazione — the -ere class — has the most complicated relationship with the passato remoto of any Italian verb group. The vast majority of -ere verbs are irregular in this tense, even when they are perfectly regular elsewhere. The handful that are regular share a quirk of their own: they have two competing sets of endings that have coexisted for centuries, and educated writers still pick between them by ear.
This page covers the regular -ere paradigm and the two ending sets. For the irregular majority — verbs like prendere, scrivere, leggere, mettere, chiedere, rompere — see the -si pattern page and the double-consonant stems page.
Two ending sets, both correct
A regular -ere verb in the passato remoto has two equally valid conjugations. Compare the io, lui, and loro forms in particular:
| Person | -ei set (primary) | -etti set (alternative) |
|---|---|---|
| io | -ei | -etti |
| tu | -esti | -esti |
| lui / lei / Lei | -é | -ette |
| noi | -emmo | -emmo |
| voi | -este | -este |
| loro | -erono | -ettero |
The tu, noi, and voi forms are identical in both sets. The split is only in io, lui, and loro — the same three slots that go irregular in most -ere verbs. This is not a coincidence: those three positions are where Italian verbs do most of their morphological work.
Credere — the model verb
Take credere (to believe), drop the -ere to get the stem cred-, and add either set of endings. Both columns are correct Italian.
| Person | -ei form | -etti form |
|---|---|---|
| io | credei | credetti |
| tu | credesti | credesti |
| lui / lei / Lei | credé | credette |
| noi | credemmo | credemmo |
| voi | credeste | credeste |
| loro | crederono | credettero |
Credei alle sue parole solo per un istante, poi capii la verità.
I believed his words for just an instant, then I understood the truth.
Nessuno credette a quella storia, nemmeno i suoi genitori.
Nobody believed that story, not even his parents.
Credemmo di essere arrivati in tempo, ma il treno era già partito.
We thought we'd arrived on time, but the train had already left.
I soldati non crederono ai propri occhi quando videro la città distrutta.
The soldiers couldn't believe their eyes when they saw the destroyed city.
The acute accent on the lui form
Pay attention to credé in the -ei column. This is one of the very few places in Italian where you write an acute accent (é) rather than the more common grave (è). The acute marks the closed e sound — the same sound you hear in perché, né, and sé.
The accent is mandatory, not optional. Without it, crede is the present indicative ("he/she believes"); with it, credé is the passato remoto ("he/she believed"). One stroke of the pen is the only thing distinguishing the two tenses in writing.
Lei crede in Dio.
She believes in God. (present)
Lei credé in Dio fino all'ultimo respiro.
She believed in God until her last breath. (passato remoto)
The double m in noi
The noi form is credemmo with a double m. This is the same pattern that appears in the noi forms of essere (fummo), avere (avemmo), and every other passato remoto. The doubling is etymological — it preserves the Latin -immus / -ēmus / -avimus endings — and it distinguishes the passato remoto from the imperfetto.
| Tense | Form | Translation |
|---|---|---|
| imperfetto | credevamo | we believed / we were believing (ongoing) |
| passato remoto | credemmo | we believed (one completed event) |
Da bambini credevamo a Babbo Natale.
As children we believed in Santa Claus. (ongoing childhood belief, imperfetto)
Quando ce lo dissero, credemmo a tutto subito.
When they told us, we believed everything immediately. (single moment, passato remoto)
The single-m form credemo does not exist in modern Italian. Always double the m.
The full set of regular -ere verbs
This is a short list. Most -ere verbs you know are not regular in the passato remoto. The genuinely regular ones are:
| Infinitive | Meaning | io (-ei) | io (-etti) | lui (-é) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| credere | to believe | credei | credetti | credé |
| temere | to fear | temei | temetti | temé |
| battere | to beat / strike | battei | battetti | batté |
| ricevere | to receive | ricevei | ricevetti | ricevé |
| vendere | to sell | vendei | vendetti | vendé |
| potere | to be able | potei | — | poté |
| dovere | to have to | dovei | dovetti | dové |
Note that potere uses only the -ei set: potetti is not used because the t-t cluster is awkward against the stem. Dovere allows both, with dovetti slightly more common in older texts.
Temettero il peggio per giorni, finché non arrivò la notizia.
They feared the worst for days, until the news arrived.
Battei tre volte alla porta, ma nessuno rispose.
I knocked three times on the door, but nobody answered.
Ricevetti la lettera la mattina seguente.
I received the letter the following morning.
Vendé la casa di famiglia per pagare i debiti.
He sold the family house to pay off the debts.
Non potei fare nulla per aiutarla.
I couldn't do anything to help her.
The trap: most -ere verbs are irregular here
This is the hardest fact about the -ere class in passato remoto. A verb that is perfectly regular in the present indicative — prendere, scrivere, leggere, mettere, chiedere, rompere, decidere, chiudere, ridere — almost always goes irregular in the passato remoto, taking the -si pattern instead.
| Infinitive | Regular -ere expectation | Actual passato remoto (io) |
|---|---|---|
| prendere | *prendei | presi (irregular -si) |
| scrivere | *scrivei | scrissi (irregular -si) |
| leggere | *leggei | lessi (irregular -si) |
| mettere | *mettei | misi (irregular -si) |
| chiedere | *chiedei | chiesi (irregular -si) |
| rompere | *rompei | ruppi (double-consonant) |
The forms with asterisks are wrong. Italian speakers do not say them and they will not appear in any text. The takeaway: when you encounter a new -ere verb, do not assume it's regular in the passato remoto. Look it up, or default to expecting the -si pattern.
Common mistakes
❌ Lei credè in Dio.
Incorrect — wrong accent. The lui form takes acute é, not grave è.
✅ Lei credé in Dio.
Correct — credé with acute accent.
❌ Noi credemo a quella storia.
Incorrect — the noi form has a double m.
✅ Noi credemmo a quella storia.
Correct — credemmo, like fummo, avemmo, andammo.
❌ Io prendetti il libro dallo scaffale.
Incorrect — prendere is irregular in the passato remoto. The io form is presi, not *prendetti.
✅ Io presi il libro dallo scaffale.
Correct — presi follows the -si pattern.
❌ Loro credetterono al suo racconto.
Incorrect — the -etti set's loro form is credettero, not *credetterono. Don't add an extra -ro-no on top of the -ette-ro ending.
✅ Loro credettero al suo racconto.
Correct — credettero is the -etti loro form. The -ei loro form crederono is also valid.
❌ Lui potetti parlare con il direttore.
Incorrect — potere does not use the -etti set; the cluster t-t is avoided.
✅ Lui poté parlare con il direttore.
Correct — poté, with acute accent.
❌ Io credei la storia, lui credetti la mia versione.
Incorrect — credetti is the io form of the -etti set, not the lui form. The lui -etti form is credette. (Stylistically, also avoid mixing the -ei and -etti sets within a single passage.)
✅ Io credei la storia, lui credé la mia versione.
Correct — both forms in the -ei set, parallel construction.
Key takeaways
The regular -ere passato remoto is a small, well-defined corner of the system. Three points to remember:
Two sets coexist: -ei/-é/-erono and -etti/-ette/-ettero. Both are correct. Pick by ear; avoid -etti when the stem already ends in -t-.
The lui form takes acute é — credé, batté, poté, vendé. This is one of the few acute accents in Italian and it is mandatory in writing.
Most -ere verbs are not regular here. Prendere, scrivere, leggere, mettere, chiedere, rompere all go irregular. The genuinely regular set is small (credere, temere, battere, ricevere, vendere, potere, dovere).
Once you have the regular paradigm, the next step is the irregular system. The -si pattern covers most of the irregular -ere verbs in one elegant rule. The double-consonant stems cover a smaller but very high-frequency family (ebbi, bevvi, caddi, seppi, volli). Together those two patterns account for nearly every irregular -ere verb in Italian.
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Open the Italian course →Related Topics
- Passato Remoto: Regular -are VerbsB1 — The single most regular passato remoto class — the one place in this notoriously irregular tense where you can rely on a stable pattern, plus the obligatory accent, the double-m trap, and the stress placement that gives away non-natives.
- Passato Remoto: Regular -ire VerbsB1 — How to conjugate regular -ire verbs in the passato remoto — including the double-i orthographic curiosity and why -isco verbs drop their infix here.
- Passato Remoto: The -si Pattern (Strong Perfects)B1 — The single most productive irregular pattern in the Italian passato remoto — one rule that conjugates dozens of high-frequency -ere verbs from prendere to scrivere to leggere.
- Passato Remoto: Double-Consonant Stems (bere, cadere, avere)B1 — The second great irregular family of the passato remoto — verbs whose io, lui, and loro forms double their stem-final consonant: ebbi, bevvi, caddi, seppi, volli, venni, stetti.
- Passato Remoto: Essere and AvereB1 — The two foundational verbs in the passato remoto — fui and ebbi — their wildly irregular forms, and why mastering them unlocks the trapassato remoto and centuries of Italian literature.
- Il Passato Remoto: OverviewB1 — Italian's literary and Southern past tense — when it's productive, when it's archaic, why every Italian needs to recognize it even if half the country never says it, and a preview of the irregularity that makes it the hardest tense in the language.