Passive voice with the verb “andare”: Italian grammar lesson 216

What is the passive voice?

In this post, we’re going to focus on how to form the passive voice with the verb andare.

Have a look at the two examples below and pay attention to the difference in terms of meaning:

And

How to form the passive voice with essere?

To form the passive voice in Italian, we use the verb essere followed by the past participle of the main verb, as in the examples below:

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Il pranzo è servito alle 12.

Lunch is served at 12.

Questi palazzi sono stati costruiti negli anni 80.

These buildings were built in the 80s.

Since we use the verb essere to form the passive voice, the past participle has to agree in gender and number with the subject.

So, the past participle will end in -o, -a, -i, or -e depending on whether the subject is masculine or feminine, and singular or plural.

How to form the passive voice with andare?

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Interestingly, in Italian, the passive voice can also be formed with the verb andare followed by the past participle of the main verb.

The structure is: Conjugated form of the verb venire + past participle of the main verb.

This means we don’t always need the verb essere when we want to use the passive voice.

We use the verb andare in the passive voice to express obligation or necessity. It’s the Italian equivalent of the English “must”.

It is used exactly like dovere + essere + past participle (has to be, must be).

The following two sentences in Italian are synonyms:

The conjugation of the verb andare

The verb andare is irregular. And we usually use the present tense of the verb andare in the passive voice.

So, let’s  review it’s the conjugation:

You’ll notice we mainly use va and vanno.

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Now you’re ready to see some more examples of passive voice with the verb andare.

Passive voice with andare: examples

Let’s have a look at some examples:

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