Italian All-in-One For Dummies (159 page)

Keeping the a

You can group the verbs
dare, fare,
and
stare
together because even though they're
-are
verbs, they drop only the final
e
of
-are
and then take the endings
-ò, -ai, -à, -emo, -ete,
and
-anno
to form the future (see
Table 5-3
).

Table 5-3 The Future Forms of Dare, Fare, and Stare

All alone: The verb essere

The verb
essere
(
to be
) is in a category all by itself! Its future tense stem becomes
sar-,
upon which you add the future endings. The following table shows you the full conjugation.

Talking about the future with some handy expressions

“Let's forget about
domani,
let's forget about
domani,
let's forget about
domani,
'cause
domani
never comes.” Although this popular tune encourages you to forget about
domani
(
tomorrow
) and the future, the elements of the future are important frames of reference for your daily existence. You can use the phrases in
Table 5-4
to speak in precise terms about the future.

Could-ing and Would-ing: The Conditional Mood

The Italian conditional mood corresponds to saying
could, would,
or
should
in English. For example, the conditional mood allows you to focus on the finer, most important things in life, like “I could never get tired of eating ice cream”; “I would go to Italy in a heartbeat”; and “I should buy a Ferrari.” The conditional is also the perfect mood for telling people what to do: “You should marry George,” or “You could be a little nicer!” In the following sections, you practice using and conjugating the conditional.

Covering the uses of the conditional

The conditional mood has a couple specific uses:

Asking a question:
When asking a question, the conditional is the polite way to go.

Potrei
provare
questi stivali?
(
Would I
be able to try on these boots?
)

Sarebbe
possibile
avere
un po' d'acqua, per favore?
(
Would it be possible to have some water, please?
)

Noting that one event is dependent upon (conditional to) another event occurring:
In this usage, the conditional often appears in the same sentence with the imperfect subjunctive and with “if” sentences. See
Chapters 4
and
5
in Book V for more on the subjunctive mood.

But in this chapter, the conditional either exists by itself or is tied to another condition in the present tense or
passato prossimo,
as in this example:

Claudio
si
sposerebbe
ma non
ha
trovato
la donna giusta.
(
Claudio would get married,
but he hasn't found the right woman.
)

Forming the regular conditional

If you enjoy forming the regular future tense in Italian (covered earlier in this chapter), you'll love forming the regular conditional mood because the two use the exact same infinitive stems. (Note that the
a
in the stem of
-are
verbs becomes an
e.
) And you add the same set of conditional endings for all three verb conjugations (
-are, -ere,
and
-ire
verbs) to the conditional stems.

The following list shows the conditional endings for the three verb conjugations.

io:
-ei

tu:
-esti