The Italian remote past or passato remoto is a like “I wrote.” If you like Italian literature and history, the passato remoto is your beacon — you’ll see this tense come up quite a bit!! However, in spoken Italian, passato remoto’s use varies by region: in Tuscany and Southern Italy you will hear passato remoto, while in the North you will hear more passato prossimo.
Let’s have a little ‘taste’ of this tense with the typical fairy-tale ending:
E vissero felici e contenti.
And they lived happily ever after.
Or, on a more classical note, the most famous beginning verses of Dante’s Inferno:
Nel mezzo del cammin di nostra vita
Halfway in the journey of our life
Being from Tuscany, I love both Dante and the passato remoto, so let’s conquer it together! In this post we’ll cover when to use the passato remoto, how to form it, and some of the other tenses you can use to replace it. Let’s have a look!
We use the passato remoto in a wide range of circumstances, including:
To refer to a completed past action, like the passato prossimo, but when the event occurred in the distant past, and has no serious effects on the present.
Arrivai negli Stati Uniti nel 1992.
I arrived in the States in 1992.
Finii le superiori nel 1985.
I graduated from high school in 1985.
Notice, in the example below, how the passato remoto is used for the completed past action, while the imperfetto is used for descriptions of actions that were ongoing or recurrent in the past.
L’inverno se ne andò e si lasciò dietro i dolori reumatici.
Winter went by and left behind rheumatism.
It’s commonly used in literature and when referring to historical events:
La Seconda Guerra Mondiale finì nel 1945.
WWII finished in 1945.
As already mentioned, in spoken Italian the easier passato prossimo is more commonly used in the northern regions, but from Tuscany down to the South of Italy, you often hear passato remoto even when referring to a more recent past!
Ieri preparai le lasagne.
Yesterday, I prepared lasagna.
Passato remoto and passato prossimo are not used together in the same sentence.
They are mostly interchangeable when you mean a completed past action like “I ate,” but not when you refer to a past action that just ended, and is related to the present like “I just ate.”
To form the passato remoto of most Italian verbs, you’ll remove the ending of the verb and replace it with a special passato remoto ending. However, the ending you use will depend on which infinitive ending a verb has (-are, -ere, or -ire), and there are also several verbs to learn. Let’s have a look at the regular verbs first.
Like other simple tenses, you can form the regular passato remoto by dropping the infinitive ending (-are / -ere / -ire) and adding the passato remoto ending that corresponds to the .
Subject Pronoun | comprare(to buy) | credere(to believe) | dormire(to sleep) |
|---|---|---|---|
io | compr-ai | cred-ei OR cred-etti | dorm-ii* |
tu | compr-asti | cred-esti | dorm-isti |
lui/lei/Lei | compr-ò | cred-è OR cred-ette | dorm-ì |
noi | compr-ammo | cred-emmo | dorm-immo |
voi | compr-aste | cred-este | dorm-iste |
loro | compr-arono | cred-erono OR cred-ettero | dorm-irono |
Here’s a tip I learned from my grade-school teacher! If you remove only the -re from the infinitive ending, then the endings for ‑are, ‑ere, and ‑ire verbs are almost all the same! Grazie, Sig.ra Cara!(Thank you, Mrs. Cara!)
Now let’s see some examples in sentences. Notice that the form you use will depend on the pronoun you’d use for the subject:
Comprai una borsa.
I bought a purse.
Credette alla sua storia.
He believed his story.
Dormisti fino a tardi.
You slept late.
For regular -ere verbs, the io, lui/lei, and loro have two possible forms, which are both considered correct!
In the regular passato remoto, remember to use an accent on the final vowel for lui/lei to avoid confusing it with the present tense. The accent tells you which vowel is more prominent in pronunciation.
compro / comprò
KOMpro / komPRO
I buy / she bought
crede / credè
KREde / kreDE
he believes / he believed
dormi / dormì
DORMee / dormEE
you slept / she slept
There are two common features of irregular verbs in the passato remoto:
They’ll have two different stems: one for io, lui-lei, loro, and another for tu, noi, voi.
They’ll use irregular endings for io, lui-lei, loro, but the regular endings for tu, noi, voi
Not all verbs fit perfectly into this pattern, but a lot of them will.
Don’t worry! Even Italian native speakers rely heavily on hearing, reading, and dictionaries to recognize the irregular stems of the passato remoto.
Here are three common irregular verbs in the passato remoto. Do you see the patterns we discussed above?
Subject Pronoun | fare(made) | scrivere(wrote) | venire(came) |
|---|---|---|---|
io | feci | scrissi | venni |
tu | facesti | scrivesti | venisti |
lui/lei/Lei | fece | scrisse | venne |
noi | facemmo | scrivemmo | venimmo |
voi | faceste | scriveste | veniste |
loro | fecero | scrissero | vennero |
Notice that:
The endings for tu, noi, and voi are -sti, -mmo, and -ste, which are just the regular endings for the passato remoto.
The endings for io, lui, lei, Lei, loro are -i, -e, and -ero, which are different!
In novels and history books, you’d most likely read sentences where the subject is io(I), lui/lei(he/she), or loro(they), and these are the most irregular forms! You can think of them as “the irregulars.”
Each verb uses two different stems:
Infinitive | For io, lui, lei, Lei, loro | For tu, noi, voi |
|---|---|---|
fare | fec- | face- |
scrivere | scriss- | scrive- |
venire | venn- | veni- |
Every dictionary will give you the first person (io) and second person (tu) form of the verb in the passato remoto! Knowing just those two will usually let you conjugate the verb!
For some more advice on the two patterns discussed above, have a look at our list of tips on how to find patterns in the passato remoto!
Here’s another example of this stem split: dire(to say, to tell):
Pinocchio disse una bugia.
Pinocchio told a lie.
Dicemmo una bugia.
We told a lie.
Some irregular verbs, like dare(to give) will have two different possible io/lui/lei/loro forms that are used interchangeably. But there will still be a totally different stem for tu/noi/voi. For example:
diede un bacio / dette un bacio
s/he gave a kiss
demmo un bacio
we gave a kiss
It would be a good idea to memorize the most common verbs that are irregular in the passato remoto! You can find lists of them in our chart of the irregular verbs in passato remoto, along with complete conjugations.
Obviously, essere and avere are also irregular in the passato remoto. But even these verbs will follow the two-stem pattern from above!
Infinitive | For io, lui, lei, Lei, loro | For tu, noi, voi |
|---|---|---|
essere | fu- | fo- |
avere | ebb- | ave- |
Here’s a chart with their full conjugations. Keep these handy when you get into more advanced tenses like the trapassato remoto or the !
Subject Pronoun | essere(was/were) | avere(had) |
|---|---|---|
io | fui | ebbi |
tu | fosti | avesti |
lui/lei/Lei | fu | ebbe |
noi | fummo | avemmo* |
voi | foste | aveste* |
loro | furono | ebbero |
In the second half of the 20th century, authors started to use the so-called “historical” present tense or just the passato prossimo in places where they’d once used the passato remoto.
Historical present / Presente storico
Some authors prefer to use the present tense to make a narration more lively. It’s as if you were there!
Passato prossimo
This is the most common substitution to the passato remoto. Using this tense lets you avoid all the irregularities, though you lose the nuance of the historical ‘distance’ in time. It’s frequently used in spoken Italian, but authors are starting to use it in their novels as well.
The passato remoto is your key to mastering Italian, reading Italian novels, and talking about history like a pro! It’s considered the most challenging tense to learn, even for Italian speakers! So don’t despair, remember these strategies to recognize and understand it:
Regular verbs mostly take these endings, where V is the first vowel of the infinitive ending -are / -ere / -ire
Subject Pronoun | Ending |
|---|---|
io | Vi |
tu | Vsti |
lui/lei/Lei | V̀ |
noi | Vmmo |
voi | Vste |
loro | Vrono |
Most verbs in -are and -ire are regular, but irregular verbs will usually have two stems: one for io/lui/lei/Lei/loro and one for tu/noi/voi → When in doubt, check your dictionary!
Want to show off what you learned? Let’s practice the Italian passato remoto now!
