Presente: Dare (to give)

Dare ("to give") is one of Italian's four monosyllabic-infinitive verbs (along with fare, stare, dire) and shares with them an irregular present that must simply be memorized. The conjugation itself is short. The trickier work is two-fold: an obligatory accent on the lui form that distinguishes the verb from the preposition da, and a long list of idiomatic collocations where Italian "gives" what English does, takes, makes, or pays.

The conjugation

Three points to internalize:

1. The lui form must be written dà with a grave accent. This is not optional: without the accent, da is the preposition meaning "from, by, since, at." A textbook with Marco da il libro is wrong; the correct form is Marco dà il libro. The accent is the only thing that prevents systematic ambiguity in writing.

2. The loro form is danno, with a doubled n — joining the irregular -are pattern with fanno (fare), vanno (andare), and stanno (stare). All four are root-stressed: dànno, never dannò.

3. The io form do is sometimes written dò with a grave accent in older texts, but the standard modern orthography is unaccented do (the Accademia della Crusca position). Both are encountered; modern textbooks prefer plain do.

The accent on dà — non-optional

This is the single most common written error English speakers make with this verb. The grave accent on dà is required because Italian has another, very high-frequency word with the same letters: the preposition da, which means "from, by, since, at someone's place."

Without the accent, the sentence becomes systematically ambiguous: Marco da il libro could be parsed as "Marco from the book" — gibberish, but a speech-recognition system or careless reader could pause. Always write dà with the accent in third-person singular.

The same convention applies to other monosyllabic homographs: è (is) vs e (and), sì (yes) vs si (oneself), lì/là (there) vs li/la (them/it). Italians are strict about these accents in writing.

The 'dai' twin: another homograph (no accent this time)

The tu form dai shares its spelling with the contracted preposition + article dai ("from the," masculine plural, da + i). Both have the same pronunciation. Unlike dà, the verb form here is not given a distinguishing accent — the convention only marks the third-person singular.

The third use is also worth knowing: dai! as a standalone interjection means "come on!" — encouraging, urging, or gently disagreeing. It is everywhere in spoken Italian.

Context disambiguates without difficulty: a verb form takes a subject pronoun or implies one; the preposition fits inside a noun phrase; the interjection sits at the start of a clause.

Auxiliary in compound tenses: avere

Dare is transitive — you give something, and usually to someone — and so it takes avere in compound tenses. The participio passato is regular: dato.

The participio agrees only when preceded by lo, la, li, le, ne — the standard rule for verbs taking avere. L'ho data (I gave it — feminine direct object); Le ho date (I gave them — feminine plural).

Dare del tu / dare del Lei — the formality choice

This is dare's most Italian-specific construction, with no clean English equivalent. To "address someone with the tu form" is dare del tu; to "address them with the formal Lei form" is dare del Lei. The construction is fixed: dare + del + tu/Lei.

The reciprocal darsi del tu ("to be on tu terms with each other") marks a moment of social passage — a small but real shift in relationship. Italians often signal it explicitly: "Diamoci del tu" is the standard way to suggest the switch. Refusing or hesitating is also a meaningful social act; in formal workplaces, between strangers of different ages, or in commercial transactions, Lei remains the default.

For the full mood and pronoun system behind this, see subject pronouns and politeness.

High-frequency idiomatic collocations

Like fare, dare carries a heavy idiomatic load. Memorize each of these as a unit; trying to translate them word-by-word from English will almost always go wrong.

The imperative

The tu imperative of dare has three forms in modern Italian:

• dai (the same as the indicative tu form)
• da' (apocopated, with apostrophe — used before pronouns and in some fixed expressions)
• da (very rarely, mostly in older texts; not standard today)

The first two are both common and acceptable in modern writing; da' is more idiomatic before clitic pronouns.

When pronouns attach to the apocopated da', the consonant of the pronoun doubles: dammi (give me), dallo (give it), dacci (give us). This is the same syntactic doubling that happens with fa', di', va', sta'. The one exception is gli: dagli (give him / give them) does not double — the /ʎ/ sound (written gl before i) never doubles in this construction. The same exception applies to fagli, digli, vagli, stagli.

The Lei imperative is dia (from the congiuntivo). The noi form is diamo ("let's give").

Common mistakes

Key takeaways

Dare conjugates as do, dai, dà, diamo, date, danno — note the obligatory grave accent on dà (3sg), the diphthong in dai (one syllable), and the doubled n in danno (root-stressed: dànno). The participio passato is dato.

The accent on dà is non-negotiable in writing. Without it, the form collides with the preposition da, and the sentence becomes ambiguous or incorrect.

Dare carries a long list of idiomatic collocations where Italian "gives" what English does, takes, lends, throws, or pays: dare una mano, dare fastidio, dare una festa, dare un esame, dare alla luce, dare retta, dare un'occhiata. Memorize each as a unit.

The construction dare del tu / del Lei is the standard way Italians talk about which pronoun to address someone with — a cultural and linguistic operation with no English equivalent. Diamoci del tu is the standard signal that two speakers are moving from formal to informal address.

Once dare is solid, look at the parallel collocational verb fare — the two together carry an enormous share of everyday Italian. Round out the irregular -are quartet with andare and stare, all of which share the doubled-n loro pattern.