Irregular Past Participles in Italian

You’ve learned that if you want to talk about the past in Italian in the passato prossimo or conjugate any compound tense in the conditional or the subjunctive, you’re going to have to become familiar with the past participles of verbs. Those are what in English translate to done, made, said, seen, known, and so forth.

Lucky for you, a lot of past participles of Italian verbs are conjugated along regular patterns and therefore have formulaic endings: verbs in -are have past participles in -ato, and those in -ere and -ire have past participles in -uto and -ito, respectively. Among the regular verbs with regular past participles are camminare (camminato), parlare (parlato), credere (creduto), and finire (finito).

Irregular How?

While we do get off easy when it comes to those regular verbs, many verbs in Italian, especially the ones ending in -ere, have irregular past participles. For example, with cuocere, you might think the past participle is cuociuto but it is cotto; with leggere, you might think it is leggiuto but it is letto. With rompere, romputo, but it is rotto; with venire, venito but it is venuto.

Most verbs have more than one irregular tense or mode, but sometimes the past participle is the only mode that makes the verb irregular: it might otherwise be entirely regular. Conversely, a verb can be irregular with a regular past participle (andare with andato; cadere with caduto; bere with bevuto, based on the Latin infinitive bevere). So when we are talking here about irregular past participles, we are talking about just that: not other aspects of an irregular verb.

Patterns

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The Italian Past Participle

By Michael San Filippo

One way to become well-versed in Italian past participles—besides plain memorization—is to become familiar with families of verbs and similarities between their features, regular and irregular, and even their sounds. Sometimes a mere difference in accent in the infinitive will account for a difference in pattern in the past participle.

For your ease of learning, here is a table of common verbs with similarly irregular past participles. For example, verbs that end in -endere like prendere are going to have a past participle similar to preso: sospendere, sospeso; sorprendere, sorpreso.

Plus, below you’ll find a list of some of the most common past participles that don't really fit in any family. Hopefully, we will find some reason in the madness.

Irregular Past Participles: Some Families and Groupings

This list is not all-inclusive; many verbs with irregular past participles have their own singular models (and the verbs that descend from them follow suit).

Other Common Irregular Past Participles

Here are some more irregular past participles of common verbs not contained in the families above:

• essere (to be): stato (been)
• bere (to drink): bevuto (actually regular, based on Latin infinitive bevere)
• chiedere (to ask): chiesto (asked)
• conoscere (to know): conosciuto (known)
• correre (to run): corso (run)
• cuocere (to cook): cotto (cooked)
• morire (to die): morto (dead)
• muovere (to move): mosso (moved)
• nascere (to be born): nato (born)
• piacere (to like): piaciuto (liked)
• rimanere (to remain): rimasto (remained)
• scrivere (to write): scritto (written)
• stringere (to tighten): stretto (tightened)

How to Know?

A good Italian dictionary is essential in guiding Italian language-learners through the maze of past participles. Remember, once you become familiar with the broad strokes of the families and groupings and start to recognize patterns and similarities, with a bit of practice you will be able to commit them to memory and speak in compound tenses with much greater ease.

Buono studio!