Conjugation of avere (to have) in Italian

The Italian verbs essere and avere are the two auxiliary verbs of the Italian language.
Essere means "to be", while avere means "to have".

Lesson outline

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1.Usage of auxiliary verbs
2.Usage and function of avere
3.Conjugation of avere
3.1.Indicativo
3.1.1.Presente
3.1.2.Passato prossimo
3.1.3.Imperfetto
3.1.4.Trapassato prossimo
3.1.5.Passato remoto
3.1.6.Trapassato remoto
3.1.7.Futuro semplice
3.1.8.Futuro anteriore
3.2.Congiuntivo
3.2.1.Presente
3.2.2.Passato
3.2.3.Imperfetto
3.2.4.Trapassato
3.3.Condizionale
3.3.1.Presente
3.3.2.Passato
3.4.Imperativo
3.5.Infinito
3.6.Participio
3.7.Gerundio
4.Exercises
4.1.Fill in the blanks with the correct form of avere
4.2.Fill in the blanks with the correct form of avere

Usage of auxiliary verbs

Auxiliary verbs are so called because they are used together with the main verb to create compound tenses and the active and passive voices.
The main verb provides lexical information while the auxiliary verb provides grammatical information.
Furthermore, both auxiliary verbs have a lexical meaning so they can be both predicative or copulative verbs.

Both essere and avere have an irregular conjugation.

In this page we will focus on the auxiliary verb avere (to have).

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Usage and function of avere

The verb avere in Italian is used to express an action or to express possession.

The avere verb in Italian is also used to form the compound tenses with:

All transitive verbs in the active voice
Some intransitive verbs such as camminare (to walk), lavorare (to work), squillare (to ring) that require the auxiliary verb avere

Examples:

Io ho una casa molto grande (I have a very big house) - possession
La settimana scorsa ho avuto tre giorni di vacanza (Last week I had three days off) - compound tense

The verb to have in Italian (avere) belongs to the 2nd conjugation but its conjugation is irregular.