Sembra che + subjunctive: Italian grammar lesson 215

The Italian word sembrare can be translated as “to seem like” or “to look like”. As you can probably tell, we’re once again talking about a possibility so we need the subjunctive.

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Sembra che + subjunctive

We use “sembra che” to express a personal opinion and not a fact. The structure is pretty simple since we don’t need to conjugate the verb sembrare. We just say sembra che + subjunctive.

Of course, the verb sembrare can also be in the past and might be preceded by mi, ti, gli, le, ci, vi, gli.

As we said in previous lessons, we can use sembrare with the four types of subjunctive: the presente, imperfetto, passato, and trapassato.

If you need to review when to use each of the four subjunctives, we recommend having a quick look at the Italian grammar lessons 203 (Present regular), 204 (Present irregular), 208 (Past), 209 (Imperfect), and 210 (Trapassato).

Now, let’s look at examples with the four of them.

sembra che subjunctive

Sembra che + congiuntivo presente

Sembra che lei abbia ragione.

It seems like she’s right.

Non mi sembra che tu stia bene.

It doesn’t seem to me that you’re fine.

Sembra che loro vogliano andare in Germania.

It seems that they want to go to Germany.

sembra che congiuntivo

Sembra che + congiuntivo imperfetto

Sembrava che tu volessi andare via.

It seemed that you wanted to go away.

Non mi sembra che voi steste bene.

It doesn’t seem to me that you were fine.

A me sinceramente sembrava che lui dicesse la verità.

Honestly, it seemed to me that he was saying the truth.

it looks like in Italian

Sembra che + congiuntivo passato

Sembra che Antonella e Marco abbiano portato via tutto.

It seems that Antonella and Marco took everything away.

Non sembra che tu sia stato tanto gentile con lei.

It doesn’t seem that you were very nice to her.

Sembra che il cane abbia fatto un disastro.

It seems that the dog made a mess.

it seems like in Italian

Sembra che + congiuntivo trapassato

Sembrava che ti fossi divertita l’anno scorso.

It seemed that you had had fun last year.

Mi sembrava che avessero detto di no.

It seemed to me they had said no.

Ci sembrava che foste riusciti a finire il progetto.

It seemed to us that you had managed to finish the project.

sembrare congiuntivo

Learn more

Here are some more cases in which Subjunctive is used. Learn how they work for becoming truly Italian!

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In case that + Subjunctive

Magari + Subjunctive

Prima che + Subjunctive

Nonostante + Subjunctive

Qualunque, chiunque, ovunque + Subjunctive

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FAQs on Sembra che + subjunctive: Italian grammar lesson 215

What is the subjunctive?

Is a verb tense for uniting subordinate and principal sentences with verbs expressing opinions, desires, hopes, doubts, hypotesis, etc

Sembra che + Congiuntivo passato

Sembra che + Essere/Avere Present Subjunctive + Past Participle

Sembra che + Congiuntivo trapassato

Sembra che + Avessi/Fossi + Past Participle

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