Essere o Avere. Casi speciali

Avere istead of essere

• If the majority of movements verbs use essere (to be) as the auxiliary (see Unità 14.1), some of them use instead avere (to have). Here are the most common verbs of this kind (you have already met all of them):

Verbs that are formed with both auxiliaries
Some verbs can use with both auxiliaries. The choice between essere and avere is not accidental, but it depends on the context of use, on what we want to say. If the verb has a transitive use, meaning that a direct object follows it, then the auxiliary will be avere. Instead, if the verb has an intransitive use, meaning that a direct object does not follow it, then the auxiliary will be essere. Let me explain this concept with an example. A verb such as cambiare (to change) can be both transitive and intransitive.

• In a sentence like Technology has changed our lives, “Technology” (subject) performs directly an action on “our lives,” which is the direct object. It is easy to recognize a direct object since it answers the question What? (or Who?) : What does technology has changed? “Our lives“. So, when you say the same thing in Italian you must use the auxiliary avere: La tecnologia ha cambiato la nostra vita
• In a sentence like Our life has changed with technology, “Our life” (subject) doesn’t perform an action on something (or someone else), meaning that there is not and cannot be a direct object. In fact, the question What? (or Who?) is unfeasible in this case (you can eventually ask With what?, but never What?). So, when you say the same thing in Italian you must use the auxiliary essere, remembering that the past participle must agree in gender and number with the subject: La nostra vita è cambiata con la tecnologia

Here a list of the most common verbs of this type. Note: not all the Italian verbs have an exact equivalent in English.

Note: obviously when cambiare is used as a reflexive verb the auxiliary is always essere: Mi sono cambiata la gonna (I changed [myself] my skirt), Ieri ti sei cambiato la maglietta tre volte (Yesterday you changed [yourself] your shirt three times).

• Essere and avere are interchangeable with verbs indicating weather conditions like piovere (to rain), nevicare (to snow), and so on. The use of essere or avere with these verbs is perfectly equivalent: Ha piovuto/ È piovuto (It rained), Ha nevicato/ È nevicato (It snowed).

Essere and avere with modal verbs (Potere, Dovere, Volere)
The modal verbs (see Unità 7.3) potere (can, to be able to), dovere (must, to have to), and volere (to want to) can use either essere or avere depending on the auxiliary required by the infinitive verb that follows them:

• in a sentence like  Non ho potuto lavorare (I couldn’t work), the Passato Prossimo of potere is formed with avere (ho) because the verb lavorare requires avere itself (ho, hai, etc. lavorato)
• in a sentence like Marco non è voluto uscire (‘Marco did not want to go out’), the Passato Prossimo of volere is formed on the contrary with essere (è) because uscire requires the auxiliary essere (sono, sei, etc. uscito)

When they are followed by the verb infinitive essere the auxiliary must be avere (Leiha dovuto essere forte ‘She had to be strong‘,  Lui ha voluto essere il primo ‘He wanted to be the first one‘).

When used alone, without an infinitive following them, modal verbs always form their compound tenses with avere: Non ho potuto (I couldn’t), Hai voluto (You wanted) and so on.

The Passato Prossimo of volere is always formed with avere when followed by a direct object:

• Non ho voluto gli spaghetti (I didn’t want spaghetti). What did you not want? “Spaghetti” (direct object)
• Martina ha voluto sua mamma (Martina wanted her mom). Who did she want? “Sua mamma” (direct object)

• Look at the above pictures. Listen to the recordings, repeat sentence by sentence and use Speech to Text to check your spoken Italian.
• Ho salito/sceso – Sono salito/sceso? Form a few sentences using both constructions. Then use Spell and Grammar Checker to check if there are mistakes in your text.
• Work with another student asking and answering 5 questions each with the Passato Prossimo of volere, potere, and dovere. You both can check your spoken Italian using Speech to Text.