Presente: Volere (to want)

Volere is the Italian verb for wanting — the second of the three modal verbs alongside potere and dovere. It expresses desire, intention, will, and (with conditional softening) polite requests. Volere appears in three main constructions: with a noun ("voglio un caffè"), with an infinitive ("voglio partire"), and with che + a subordinate clause that requires the congiuntivo ("voglio che tu venga").

This last construction is where English speakers stumble. English doesn't have a parallel structure: where Italian says voglio che tu venga ("I want that you come" — subjunctive), English says "I want you to come" (infinitive with object). Direct translation fails, and the result is one of the most common learner errors. We'll fix that here.

The conjugation

Volere is irregular. The infinitive shows the stem vol-, but the actual conjugation uses three stems:

• vogl- in io, noi, loro (the -gl- is pronounced as a single palatal sound, like the gli in figlio)
• vuo- in tu, lui/lei
• vol- in voi (the only form with the original stem)

What volere expresses

The basic meaning of volere is to want — a desire, a wish, an intention. Italian uses it in three structural patterns.

1. Volere + noun

The simplest construction: volere + a direct object. "I want X."

A note on register: voglio un caffè is grammatically correct but socially blunt in service contexts. In a bar, a café, a restaurant, Italians soften this with the conditional vorrei ("I would like") or with prendo ("I'll take"). See the vorrei section below.

2. Volere + infinitive

When you want to do something, volere combines directly with a bare infinitive — no preposition.

This works the same way as English ("I want to leave"), so it usually causes no trouble.

3. Volere + che + congiuntivo

This is the construction English speakers consistently get wrong. When you want someone else to do something — when the subject of "wanting" is different from the subject of the action wanted — Italian does not allow the structure used in English ("I want you to leave"). Instead, you use che + the subjunctive of the second verb.

The structure is: volere + che + [different subject] + congiuntivo.

The subjunctive is required because what you want is, by definition, not yet a fact — it lives in the realm of desires, hopes, possibilities. The congiuntivo is the mood Italian uses to mark exactly that kind of unrealized, hoped-for action.

The forms of the present subjunctive of common verbs are: venga (from venire), vada (from andare), sia (from essere), abbia (from avere), faccia (from fare), dica (from dire), studi (from studiare), parta (from partire). Notice they often look like the singular forms with the same ending repeated for io/tu/lui — the present subjunctive collapses the singular distinctions.

Vorrei — the polite conditional

The conditional of volere is vorrei (singular) / vorremmo (plural we) / vorrebbe (he/she), and it is the polite-request workhorse of spoken Italian. The shift from voglio to vorrei in a request is exactly like English shifting from "I want" to "I would like" — same structure, same softening, same social function.

Volerci — a different verb worth knowing

There is a related construction that uses the same root but means something completely different: volerci = "to take / to be required / to be needed." This is impersonal — used only in the third person — and it expresses the idea that something requires an amount of time, money, effort, or material.

The third-person singular is ci vuole (when what's required is singular); the third-person plural is ci vogliono (when what's required is plural).

The agreement is with the thing required, not with the person needing it. Ci vuole pazienza (singular noun → singular verb); ci vogliono due ore (plural noun → plural verb).

In compound tenses, volerci takes essere: ci è voluto un anno ("it took a year"), ci sono volute tre ore ("it took three hours"). And like all third-person essere forms, the past participle agrees in gender and number.

This ci is not a personal pronoun ("us" or "to us") — it's a fixed particle that comes with the verb. Ci vuole is one unit; you can't drop the ci.

Volere is desire, not future

A final key point: Italian's volere is purely about desire. It does not function as a future tense marker. English will is used for both ("I will go" = both intention/promise and a simple statement of future fact), but Italian volere covers only the wanting sense.

For the future, Italian has the futuro semplice (andrò, partirà, faranno...) or — more commonly in everyday speech — the presente with a time anchor (vado domani, parto la settimana prossima). See the present indicative overview for the full discussion of how Italian handles future reference.

These are different sentences with different meanings. Mixing them produces unnatural Italian.

Compound tenses — auxiliary mirrors the infinitive

Like the other modals, volere in compound tenses follows the modal auxiliary rule: it takes whichever auxiliary the following infinitive takes.

In casual speech, you'll sometimes hear avere used uniformly (ho voluto andare), but careful speech and writing follow the agreement rule.

Common mistakes

Key takeaways

Volere is irregular: voglio, vuoi, vuole, vogliamo, volete, vogliono. Three stems, with the -gl- of vogl- pronounced as a single palatal sound.

Three points to internalize:

1. Same subject = volere + infinitive. Different subjects = volere che + congiuntivo. Never voglio te venire — that's English structure forced into Italian.

2. Vorrei is the polite default for requests. Save voglio for talking about your own desires in non-request contexts.

3. Volere is desire, not future. For "I'll go tomorrow," use the presente (vado domani) or futuro (andrò domani), not volere.

And keep volerci ("it takes / is required") in your toolkit — ci vuole tempo, ci vogliono due ore — it's the standard way Italians express how much of something is needed.

Round out your modal verbs with potere and dovere. Once all three are solid, you can express ability, possibility, permission, desire, obligation, and probability — the engine of Italian conversation.