Guides
20 essential Italian verbs for beginners
The verbs that unlock the most sentences early, and why essere and avere come before anything else.
You do not need hundreds of verbs to start speaking; you need the right twenty, in the present tense, used out loud. Verbs are where sentences come from, so a small, well-chosen set produces far more speech than a long vocabulary list of nouns.
Start with the two that everything leans on: essere (to be) and avere (to have). They are irregular, they appear constantly, and avere is how you say your age (“ho trent’anni” = literally “I have thirty years”). Learn “sono / sei / è” and “ho / hai / ha” first — the I, you, and he/she forms — before anything else.
Add the high-frequency action verbs: fare (to do/make), andare (to go), venire (to come), volere (to want), potere (to be able), dovere (to have to). With “voglio”, “posso”, and “devo” plus another verb, you can express want, ability, and obligation — a huge range of everyday sentences from three words.
Round out the twenty with regular, everyday verbs you can conjugate by pattern: parlare (to speak), mangiare (to eat), bere (to drink), prendere (to take/have), capire (to understand), sapere (to know a fact), conoscere (to know a person/place), abitare (to live), lavorare (to work), studiare (to study), and comprare (to buy).
Learn each verb inside one sentence you would actually say, not as a bare infinitive: “Vorrei prendere un caffè”, “Non capisco”, “Dove abiti?”. A verb you have said in a real sentence is available under pressure; a verb you have only read is not.
- Learn essere and avere first — everything else leans on them.
- Master volere / potere / dovere to say want, can, and must.
- Practise each verb inside a real sentence, not as a bare infinitive.