The present perfect tense (passato prossimo in Italian) is one of the forms of past tense most used in the Italian language, together with the imperfect tense. Many students of Italian find it hard to understand when to use one or the other. In this article we will explain clearly how to form it and when to use it.

What is the present perfect, and what is it used for?

The present perfect tense is used to express an action which has happened in the past, but which nonetheless still has something to do with the present. This closeness or relationship to the present can be:

• Based on time (something has happened in the recent past):
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• Based on feelings (an action whose effects are still felt in the present):
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How is the present perfect formed?

The present perfect is actually formed by using two verbs:

• The present form of one of the two auxiliary verbs essere or avere
• The past participle of the verb expressing the meaning

The past participle is easy to form: just follow this simple rule:

• The past participle of verbs ending in -are is -ato
• The past participle of verbs ending in -ere is -uto
• The past participle of verbs ending in -ire is -ito

There are however some verbs that have a past participle which is completely irregular…here are the most important ones:

If you have doubts about when to use the auxiliary verb essere and when to use avere, please refer to this page, and follow the links there to go more in depth.

When is the present perfect used?

We use the present perfect to:

• Talk about the recent past:
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• Talk about UNusual actions happened in the past
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• Talk about actions which are cleary defined in time
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• Talk about an action which will happen in the FUTURE, before another action of the future. In other words, the present perfect is often used instead of the future perfect.
  • 
    In this case, the present perfect is used to talk about a future action which will however happen before another action: first I will finish writing the text, then I will send it to you. The more grammatically correct form, less used in everyday language, uses the future perfect:
    

This is all you need to know to correctly use the present perfect in Italian. Remember that the closeness of a past action with the present is not only measured on a time scale, but most often on the basis of feelings…learning how to “feel” in a different language is probably the most difficult part, but it is also what makes learning languages so fascinating!

Now read this page about the imperfect tense, the other past tense very used in Italian. We also have a page dedicated to understanding when to use the imperfect and when to use the present perfect.