Verbs ending in –are, –ere, –ire in the present tense

The present tense indicates activities that you normally do, i.e.: canto in un coro [I sing in a choir]. In Italian the present tense also indicates:

• Activities that are taking place right now, i.e.: mangio un panino [I’m eating a sandwich].
• Activities that will take place in the near future, i.e.: domani parto per la Svezia [Tomorrow I’m leaving for Sweden].

There are three groups of verbs in Italian:

Ordinare, prendere and aprire are infinitives. The infinitive is the base form of the verb, the form that you would find in the dictionary (analogous to the English to order; to take; to open). To conjugate the verb according to which subject performs the action, drop the –are, –ere, or –ire and add the following endings:

* Some –ire verbs add –isc– to the io, tu, lui, lei and loro forms:  preferire [to prefer]   capire [to understand]  pulire [to clean]  obbedire [to obey]  restituire [to return something]

• Some verbs, like mangiare [to eat] and studiare [to study], have an i in the stem that is pronounced. You do not need an additional i in the tu and noi forms:

Sciare [to ski] is an exceptional case: it adds i in the tu form: tu scii.

• Verbs ending in –care and –gare add an h to the tu and noi forms for phonetic reasons (to maintain the same sound):

• Pay attention to how the pronunciation of c and g changes in the verbs leggere: io leggo, tu leggi; conoscere: io conosco, tu conosci.