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Essere: 1 to be: La bambina è piccola The child is small; Chi è? - Sono io Who is it? - It's me; Siamo noi it's us 2 to be: Che ore sono? - Sono le quattro What time is it? It is four o'clock;

And on and on, for more than a page, in the Harper Collins Sansoni Italian Dictionary. As in English, essere is used in myriad grammatical and linguistic situations. Learning the many conjugations and uses of the verb is crucial to the study of the Italian language.

Essere is an irregular verb (un verbo irregolare); it does not follow a predictable pattern of conjugation. Note that the form sono is used with both io and loro. The present tense (il presente) of essere is as follows:

I Tempi Composti
The compound tenses are verb tenses, such as the passato prossimo, that consist of two words. The appropriate tense of avere or essere (called the auxiliary or helping verbs) and the past participle of the target verb forms the verb phrase.

When using essere, the past participle always agrees in gender and number with the subject of the verb. It can therefore have four endings: -o, -a, -i, -e. In many cases intransitive verbs (those that cannot take a direct object), especially those expressing motion, are conjugated with the auxiliary verb essere. The verb essere is also conjugated with itself as the auxiliary verb.

Some of the most common verbs that form compound tenses with essere include:

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