Avere vs Essere
Auxiliary selection across core compound tenses.
What to focus on
- Compound tense helper verb selection
- Movement/state verbs and exceptions
- Agreement implications in participles
Avere
to have
Essere
(auxiliary, the non-perfect forms followed by a past participle, used to form composite (perfect) tenses of passive intransitive verbs and of their reflexive forms) to have (done something); to be in the state of having (done something); See Category:Italian verbs taking essere as auxiliary.. Essendo partito e non essendosi ancora fermato, lui è tutt’ora in movimento. ― Being started and not having stopped yet, he is still moving. (literally, “Being started and not having stopped yet, he is all now in movement.”). (io) sono(io) sono statoI amI (have) been. (io) sto(io) sono statoI stayI (have) stayed. (tu) ti fermi(tu) ti sei fermatoyou stop yourselfyou (have) stopped yourself. (io) vado(io) sono andatoI goI (have) gone