Italian Verb Tenses | Moods | Voices
Auxiliary verbs are also known as helping verbs, because they help form compound conjugations. The key thing to remember about Italian compound conjugations is that it’s the auxiliary verb which conjugates for the required tense or mood; the main verb is always a past participle. A2 - Low-Intermediate Italian • conjugation lessons • tenses moods voices
In English, we use the modal “would” plus a verb to talk about actions that may or may not take place, usually depending on whether a certain condition is met. The Italian equivalent to this construction is a conditional mood with a full set of conjugations for every verb. The uses of these two constructions are very similar. A2 - Low-Intermediate Italian • tenses moods voices
In English, we use the modal “will” plus a verb to talk about actions that will take place in the future, but in Italian there’s a future tense with a full set of conjugations for every verb. The uses of these two constructions are very similar. A2 - Low-Intermediate Italian • tenses moods voices
It’s imperative to understand the imperative mood if you want to give orders, make requests, express desires, provide recommendations, offer advice, and prohibit actions. A2 - Low-Intermediate Italian • tenses moods voices
They say practice makes perfect, so how can one of the most common Italian past tenses be imperfect? In grammatical terms, “perfect” means “complete,” so the imperfect tense is used to describe an incomplete or ongoing action or state of being. A2 - Low-Intermediate Italian • tenses moods voices
The passato prossimo is the most important Italian past tense, and just to make things interesting, it has three possible English equivalents. A2 - Low-Intermediate Italian • tenses moods voices
As seen in this sentence, the passive voice is used to indicate that something is being done to a subject by an agent. It’s passive because the subject is being acted upon, rather than acting as in the active voice. B1 - Intermediate Italian • tenses moods voices
The past participle is essential in the creation of compound verb tenses/moods and the passive voice, and it can also be used as an adjective. A2 - Low-Intermediate Italian • tenses moods voices
Reciprocal verbs use a reflexive pronoun to indicate that the action of the verb is exchanged between two or more subjects acting upon each other. 
For reflexive verbs, the reflexive pronoun indicates that the subject of the verb is performing the action on him/her/itself, rather than on someone or something else. The majority of reflexive verbs have to do with one’s body, clothing, or relationships.