Restare and rimanere: Italian grammar lesson 112

Start here

You’ll receive my free resources together with my best offers! Opt out at any time.

Create a free lifetime account to get access to all the free lesson and other resources.

I’ll take you to your shiny new student dashboard.

What restare and rimanere mean in Italian?

In this lesson, we will look at the Italian verbs restare and rimanere.

They both mean to remain, to be left, to stay.

Let’s have a look at some examples in context:

Sono rimasta a casa sua fino a mezzanotte.

I stayed (remained) at his place until midnight.

Resta solo un biscotto, li ha mangiati tutti Michele.

There is only one biscuit left, Michele ate them all.

As we just mentioned, restare and rimanere are synonyms most of the time.

However, there is a slight difference between the two: restare is mostly used to talk about a place, while rimanere is more about time.

Do not worry at all about this slight shade of meaning though, as even native speakers sometimes can’t tell the difference between the two, and in spoken language, they’ve practically always been synonyms.

Often, people choose one or the other based on personal preference, style or phonetics (how it sounds).

Restare and rimanere: conjugation

restare italian

Here is the conjugation of the two verbs in the present tense:

RIMANERE

io rimango
tu rimani
lui / lei rimane
noi rimaniamo
voi rimanete
loro rimangono

RESTARE

io resto
tu resti
lui / lei resta
noi restiamo
voi restate
loro restano

If you want to form compound tenses, you will need to use the past participle of these verbs:

  • rimanere: rimasto, rimasta, rimasti, rimaste
  • restare: restato, restata, restati, restate

Both verbs take the verb essere (to be) to form compound tenses.

Here, for example, is the passato prossimo:

io sono rimasto/a sono restato/a
tu sei rimasto/a sei restato/a
lui/lei è rimasto/a è restato/a
noi siamo rimasti/e siamo restati/e
voi siete rimasti/e siete restati/e
loro sono rimasti/e sono restati/e

How to use rimanere and restare?

restarci male italian

Free Guide
How to Learn Languages Fast

Now that we know how to conjugate these verbs, let’s have a more detailed look at when and how to use them.

Restare and rimanere can be used to:

  • Talk about staying or remaining in a place:

Sono rimasta a casa tutto il giorno.

I stayed home all day.

Resti qui a pranzo?

Will you stay for lunch?

  • Talk about a situation or state staying the same over time:

Siamo rimaste amiche.

We remained friends.

La situazione resta incerta.

The situation remains uncertain.

  • Talk about something “left“:

Mi restano solo 10 euro nel portafoglio.

I only have 10 euros left in my wallet.

Sono rimasti solo due partecipanti.

There are only two contestants left.

What are some common expressions rimanere and restare?

disappointed in italian

And here are some common colloquial expressions with the verbs rimanere and restare.

rimanerci or restarci male

to be disappointed

rimanere or restare d’accordo

to have agreed on something

rimanerci or restarci di sasso (di stucco)

to be stunned

restare or rimanere a bocca asciutta

to be left high and dry

Still translating in your head? Wanna speak Italian for real? Check out Stefano's courses to think directly in Italian and become fluent fast!

FAQs on Restare and rimanere: Italian grammar lesson 112

Stefano

Italian language tutor, course author, and polyglot. After learning 12 languages, I can tell you that we all master languages by listening and mimicking. With my method, you'll be speaking Italian from Lesson 1.

Follow me to fluency​

Receive my free resources once a week together with my best offers! 

Create a free lifetime account to get access to all the free lesson and other resources.

I’ll take you to your shiny new student dashboard.

One Response

Leave a Reply

Share:

Still translating in your head?

Wanna speak Italian for real? Check out Stefano’s courses to think directly in Italian and become fluent fast!
[mwai_chatbot_v2 id="support"]
Try my courses
for free​
ripeti con me mockup sm

Let me show you around

How long to fluency?

Find out how long it will take you to master Italian!
Get on the right track in 3 minutes.

dolce vita logo

We're already friends!

Coming from Luca and Marina?
Here's a special deal for you!
Just tell me where I should send the coupon.

50% OFF
all language resources

We're already friends!

Coming from All Language Resources?
Here's a special deal for you!
Just tell me where I should send the coupon.

50% OFF
GRAB A COUPON NOW, REDEEM IT LATER
50% OFF

To receive free resources once a week together with my best offers, just tell me where to send everything. Opt out at any time.

Create a free lifetime account to get access to all the free lesson and other resources.

I’ll take you to your shiny new student dashboard.