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The imperfetto is the most regular tense in Italian. Out of thousands of verbs, only a handful are irregular — and even these follow recognisable patterns. In this lesson, we will learn the five most important irregular verbs in the imperfetto: essere, fare, dire, bere, and tradurre (along with its compounds).
These verbs have contracted or archaic infinitive forms. Their imperfetto conjugations are based on older Latin stems rather than the modern infinitive:
| Modern infinitive | Original/Latin stem | Imperfetto stem |
|---|---|---|
| fare | facere | fac- → facevo |
| dire | dicere | dic- → dicevo |
| bere | bevere | bev- → bevevo |
| tradurre | traducere | traduc- → traducevo |
| essere | — (unique) | ero (completely irregular) |
Key insight: For fare, dire, bere, and tradurre, the imperfetto is formed using the old Latin stem + the regular -ere imperfetto endings (-evo, -evi, -eva, -evamo, -evate, -evano). Only essere is truly unique.
Essere is the only verb in the imperfetto that is completely irregular:
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