Passato remoto: Italian grammar lesson

Passato remoto: what is it?

The remote past tense aka Passato Remoto in Italian is typically used to talk about history or in literary texts. It is actually a simple tense and is formed by one word.

It is used for events that happened in the distant past.

Passato Remoto is used exclusively in written Italian, except for certain areas in Southern Italy where it is used in spoken language.

That’s why you should first learn the other two Italian past tenses: passato prossimo and imperfetto. But also how to use passato prossimo and imperfetto together.

Passato remoto: conjugations

Just like other verb conjugations in Italian, the regular verbs have specific endings. Follow this format to form the passato remoto (remote past) of regular verbs:

• For -are verbs, drop the infinitive ending and add one of these personal endings to the root: -ai, -asti, -ò, -ammo, -aste, -arono.
• For -ere verbs, drop the infinitive ending and add these personal endings to the root: -ei, -esti, -é, -emmo, -este, -erono. Note that many regular -ere verbs have an alternative form in
  the first-person singular, third-person singular, and third-person plural forms.
• For -ire verbs, drop the infinitive ending and add these personal endings to the root: -ii, -isti, -í, -immo, -iste, -irono.

Here are some examples of the remote past being used in Italian:

The table below provides examples of three regular Italian verbs (one of each class) conjugated in the remote past tense.

	PARLARE	RICEVERE	CAPIRE
io	parlai	ricevei (ricevetti)	capii
tu	parlasti	ricevesti	capisti
lui, lei, Lei	parlò	ricevé (ricevette)	capí
noi	parlammo	ricevemmo	capimmo
voi	parlaste	riceveste	capiste
loro, Loro	parlarono	riceverono (ricevettero)	capirono

Learn more about Italian verb conjugation.

Examples of irregular verbs

Many verbs in Italian have an irregular conjugation with the “passato remoto”.

Below are five common examples:

Essere – To be

Essere – To be

fui fosti fu

fummo foste furono

Avere – To have

Avere – To have

ebbi avesti ebbe

avemmo aveste ebbero

Fare – To do/make

Fare – To do/make

• feci
• facesti
• fece
• facemmo
• faceste
• fecero

Stare – To stay/to be

Stare – To stay/to be

• stetti
• stesti
• stette
• stemmo
• steste
• stettero

Dire – To say

Dire – To say

• dissi
• dicesti
• disse
• dicemmo
• diceste
• dissero

The Italian passato remoto

In this post, we’re going to talk about the Italian passato remoto, not to be confused with the passato prossimo.

Both passato remoto and passato prossimo are Italian past tenses. However, they are used differently.

The passato remoto is the equivalent of the English past simple (i.e.: “walked”, “lived”).

On the other hand, the passato prossimo is similar to the English present perfect (i.e.: “have walked”, “have lived”), in terms of structure.

However, it’s usually translated with the past simple.

You may not be familiar with the passato remoto since it’s not a widely used tense in spoken Italian and is not usually taught to foreign students.

Compare the following two sentences:

In the first example, we used the passato remoto, whereas in the second one we used the passato prossimo. As you can see, they’re quite different.

Let’s now find out when to use the passato remoto in Italian.

Passato remoto or historical past

The passato remoto is a narrative tense.

We mainly find it in written texts, such as in literary and historical books, and newspapers.

It is usually used to talk about historical events or actions in the distant past. If it can help you, keep in mind remoto means remote.

For anything other than ancient history or things from relatively long ago, the passato remoto may sound odd to some Italians.

In fact, the passato remoto is considered old-style by some Italian speakers, since it’s increasingly losing ground to the more common passato prossimo, especially in the regions of Northern and Central Italy.

Where do Italians use the passato remote?

Even though we just told you the passato remoto may sound odd and old-fashioned for some Italians, you should know that the passato remoto is common in the South of Italy and in some parts of Central Italy.

In those regions, the passato remoto is even used to talk about recent events.

This may be due to the fact that some Southern dialects don’t have the equivalent of the passato prossimo (which is the most common past tense in Italian), so for some Southerners, it’s more natural to use the passato remoto.

This means both tenses (passato prossimo and passato remoto) are correct.

The passato prossimo is, overall, more common than the other one. It’s also more useful since it’s not exclusively used to talk about distant events and in written texts.

You may need to know how to conjugate verbs in the passato remoto if you want to write literary or historical texts, or if you’re going to move to or travel around the South of Italy.

So, let’s have a look at how to conjugate the passato remoto.

Passato remoto: conjugation

There are three types of passato remoto verbs:

• Those with a regular conjugation

They follow a pattern of endings that only vary slightly among verb classes (-are, -ere, and -ire), i.e.: parlare (to talk), credere (to believe), and finire (to finish).

• Those with a completely irregular conjugation

Essere (to be), dire (to say), and fare (to do) are the most common verbs that are irregular in the passato remoto.

• Those with a partially irregular conjugation

These verbs have a combination of regular and irregular forms: the io, lui/lei, and loro forms are irregular, while the tu, noi, and voi forms are regular.

Vedere (to see) and leggere (to read) are examples of verbs belonging to this category.

Passato remoto: regular verbs

To form the passato remoto of regular verbs, we just remove the –are, –ere, –ire from the infinitive form and add the endings below, which are in bold:

	parlare (to speak)	credere (to sell)	finire (to finish)
io	parlai	credetti/credei	finii
tu	parlasti	credesti	finisti
lui, lei	parlò	credette/credè	finì
noi	parlammo	credemmo	finimmo
voi	parlaste	credeste	finiste
loro	parlarono	credettero/ crederono	finirono

You may have noticed that -ere verbs actually have a set of alternative endings, so feel free to use the one you feel more comfortable with.

Passato remoto: essere, dire, and fare

These three verbs are completely irregular (especially the verb essere), which means they don’t follow the pattern of regular verbs at all:

	essere (to be)	dire (to say)	fare (to do)
io	fui	dissi	feci
tu	fosti	dicesti	facesti
lui, lei	fu	disse	fece
noi	fummo	dicemmo	facemmo
voi	foste	diceste	faceste
loro	furono	dissero	fecero

Passato remoto: partially irregular verbs

Let’s now have a look at the most common and useful partially irregular verbs.

As you will see, almost all of them are -ere verbs.

Since these verbs are only irregular in the io, lui/lei, and loro forms, we’ll just give you those:

infinitive	meaning	passato remoto
accendere	to turn on	accesi, accese, accesero
avere	to have	ebbi, ebbe, ebbero
cadere	to fall	caddi, cadde, caddero
chiedere	to ask	chiesi, chiese, chiesero
chiudere	to close	chiusi, chiuse, chiusero
conoscere	to know/meet	conobbi, conobbe, conobbero
convincere	to convince	convinsi, convinse, convinsero
correre	to run	corsi, corse, corsero
crescere	to grow up	crebbi, crebbe, crebbero
decidere	to decide	decisi, decisi, decisero
difendere	to defend	difesi, difese, difesero
discutere	to argue	discussi, discusse, discussero
distruggere	to distroy	distrussi, distrusse, distrussero
dividere	to divide	divisi, divise, divisero
esprimere	to express	espressi, espresse, espressero
leggere	to read	lessi, lesse, lessero
mettere	to put	misi, mise, misero
muovere	to move	mossi, mosse, mossero
nascere	to be born	nacqui, nacque, nacquero
perdere	to lose	persi, perse, persero
prendere	to get/to take	presi, prese, presero
rimanere	to stay	rimasi, rimase, rimasero
rispondere	to reply	risposi, rispose, risposero
rompere	to break	ruppi, ruppe, ruppero
sapere	to know	seppi, seppe, seppero
sconfiggere	to defeat	sconfissi, sconfisse, sconfissero
scrivere	to write	scrissi, scrisse, scrissero
spendere	to spend	spesi, spese, spesero
togliere	to remove	tolsi, tolse, tolsero
uccidere	to kill	uccisi, uccise, uccisero
vedere	to see	vidi, vide, videro
venire	to come	venni, venne, vennero
vincere	to win	vinsi, vinse, vinsero
vivere	to live	vissi, visse, vissero
volere	to want	volli, volle, vollero

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