Italian All-in-One For Dummies (143 page)

To Make or to Do: Conjugating Fare

In its most basic form,
fare
means
to make
or
to do.
With
essere
(
to be
) and
avere
(
to have
), it's one of the most versatile and useful Italian verbs.

Fare
is also one of the most idiomatic verbs. Dozens of idiomatic expressions use
fare
as their base; you can find a useful list of
fare
expressions in the later section “
Using Irregular Verbs in Idiomatic Expressions
.” See the following table for the conjugation of
fare.

Fare
can stand alone in its irregular state. For example:
Io non faccio nulla di interessante
(
I'm not doing anything interesting
). A common question used by a parent speaking to a child is
Cosa fai?
(
What are you doing?
), though friends also use it to ask
What are you doing? What are you up to?

To Give: Dare

Dare
(
to give
) isn't terribly irregular. It follows the conjugation pattern of the
-are
regular verbs, with the exception of the
loro
forms, which double the consonant
n.

Dai
(
you give/are giving
) can also mean
come on!
in Italian and is pronounced like the English
die
.

The third person singular form of
dare,
dà
(
he/she/it, gives
or
you
[formal]
give
), carries an accent to distinguish it from the preposition
da
(
from; by
), without an accent.

To Ask How Others Are: Stare

You use
stare
to ask how someone is:
Come stai?
([familiar]
How are you?
) or
come sta?
([formal]
How are you?
) It can also mean
to stay,
physically, somewhere.
Sto all'Albergo Magnifico
(
I'm staying at the Magnifico Hotel
);
Sto a casa
(
I'm staying home
). Accompanied by the preposition
per,
it means
to be about to.
Sto per mangiare
(
I'm about to eat
).

Like
dare,
stare
isn't as irregular as some verbs in that it follows the conjugation pattern of the
-are
verbs, with the exception of the
loro
forms, which double the consonant
n.

Stare
has one other extremely important use. It combines with a verb's present participle (
-ing
form, like
eating, sleeping,
or
reading
) to make up the
present progressive verb tense.
As serious and confusing as that sounds, it's pretty much still the present tense; it's simply a little more immediate. For example, if someone calls and asks whether he's interrupting, you may say
Sto ­mangiando
(
I'm eating
[right now]
).

You form the participles of verbs by dropping a verb's traditional or identifying ending and substituting
-ando
for
-are
and
-endo
for
-ere
and
-ire.
Here are some examples:

Sto mangiando.
(
I am eating.
)

Stiamo parlando.
(
We are talking.
)

Stai leggendo.
(
You are reading.
)

State partendo.
(
You are leaving.
)

Sta pulendo.
(
He/she/it is cleaning.
)
(
You
[formal]
are cleaning.
)

Stanno vivendo.
(
They are living.
)
(
You
[formal]
are living.
)

To Come and to Go: Venire and Andare

“What is all this coming and going?” asks a worried Rodolfo from the opera
La Bohème.
Coming and going are so much a part of daily activity that the verbs
venire
(
to come
) and
andare
(
to go
) are terrifically useful. And, grammatically speaking, it's safe to say that figuring out how to use both verbs is pretty straightforward — but still irregular.

Venire
(
to come
) is the opposite of
andare.
Vieni alla festa?
(
Are you coming to the party?
);
Vengono
(
They are coming
). Other verbs also mean
to go,
such as
partire
(
to go,
as in
to leave for a trip
) and
uscire
(
to go out
).
Uscire
has its own section later in this chapter.

Andare
refers to going to a particular destination or to leaving. For example, you can say
Vado via
(
I am going away
) or the emphatic, and slightly petulant,
Me ne vado
(
I'm getting out of here
). You can also say, simply,
Vanno a teatro
(
They are going to the theater
);
Vai in ufficio?
(
Are you going to the office?
); or
Non vado a scuola oggi
(
I'm not going to school today
).

A useful expression that takes
andare
is
andare di male in peggio
(
to go from bad to worse
). For example:
La situazione va di male in peggio
(
The situation is going from bad to worse
).

Check out the following conjugations for
venire
and
andare.