Conjugate the Italian Verb 'Preferire'

Preferire is a regular third-conjugation Italian verb meaning "to prefer," "like better," or "would rather." It is a transitive verb, which means that it takes a direct object.

Conjugating 'Preferire'

The tables give the pronoun for each conjugation: io (I), tu (you), lui, lei (he, she), noi (we), voi (you plural), and loro (their). The tenses and moods are given in Italian: presente (present),  passato prossimo (present trapassato prossimo (past perfect) passato  remoto (remote past), trapassato remoto (preterite perfect), futuro semplice (simple future), and futuro anteriore (future perfect) first for the indicative, followed by the subjunctive, conditional, infinitive, participle, and gerund forms.

Indicative/Indicativo

Subjunctive/Congiuntivo

Conditional/Condizionale

Imperative/Imperativo

Presente

• –
• preferisci
• preferisca
• preferiamo
• preferite
• preferiscano

Infinitive/Infinito

Participle/Participio

Gerund/Gerundio

Forming Third-Conjugation -isc Verbs

The present tense of a regular -ire verb is formed by dropping the infinitive ending (-ire) and adding the appropriate endings to the resulting stem. There is a different ending for each person, such as “I,” “you,” or “we.”

But there is a special group of third conjugation Italian verbs, including preferire, that requires the suffix -isc to be added to the stem of all three singular (io, tu, lei) and the third-person plural (loro) forms in the present indicative and present subjunctive, as well as the second- and third-person singular and the third-person plural forms of the present imperative.

To form the first-person singular of preferire, drop the -ire ending, add -isc to the stem (prefer), and then add the appropriate ending to the verb depending on tense or mood (in this case, add the letter "o") to form preferisco, meaning "I prefer."