In this lesson we introduced a new verb tense: the present perfect tense. This is by far the most common tense used to talk about past actions in Italian. In particular, it is the tense that you would normally use to translate the English present perfect tense as well as the English simple past tense. So, a sentence such as Ho parlato a Carmela (present perfect) might correspond to the English I’ve spoken to Carmela (present perfect) or I spoke to Carmela (simple past).
Italian does also have a simple past tense, but it is used much less frequently than in English.
The Italian present perfect tense is formed the same way as the English present perfect tense: using an auxilliary verb, such as avere, to have and the past participle of the main verb, such as parlato, spoken.
The past participles of regular verbs are formed according to the following patterns:
-are
-ere
-ire (1)
-ire (2)
infinitive
parl-are
vend-ere
sent-ire
cap-ire
past participle
parl-ato
vend-uto
sent-ito
cap-ito
Most of the verbs ending in -are and -ire have regular past participles, however most of the verbs ending -ere have irregular past participles that must be learnt individually.