“Sembrare” in Italian
Meaning
Sembrare is translated in English as “to seem”. In both languages, it is usually followed by an adjective to give a personal opinion about something or someone.
Let’s have a look at some examples:
Sembri stanca. Stai bene?
You seem tired. Are you ok?
Loro sembrano simpatici.
They seem nice.
Tua mamma sembrava arrabbiata.
Your mum seemed angry.
Conjugation
Sembrare is a regular first-conjugation verb. This means that its conjugation is pretty simple, and is similar to that of other first-conjugation verbs like parlare (to speak), cantare (to sing), or mangiare (to eat).
Let me show you its present tense conjugation:
- Io sembro (I seem)
- Tusembri (You seem)
- Lui/lei sembra (He/She seems)
- Noi sembriamo (We seem)
- Voi sembrate (You seem)
- Lorosembrano (They seem)
Since it follows a regular pattern, I am confident you’ll find it easy to conjugate its other verb tenses as well. Give it a try, and let me know how it went!
The only tricky thing you have to keep in mind when conjugating is that it is an intransitive verb. This means that it might require an indirect object in order for its meaning to be fulfilled.
Let me remind you what Italian indirect objects look like:
- mi: (to) me
- ti: (to) you
- gli/le: (to) him/ her
- ci: (to) us
- vi: (to) you
- gli: (to) them
Of course, the subject of the sentence is the item, person, object that seems somehow to someone. In this sense, its conjugation is very similar to that of piacere, servire, and mancare.
Ci sembra inutile parlare con il professore.
It seems useless for us to talk to the teacher.
Stasera mi sembravate arrabbiate.
You looked angry tonight.
It is important that you remember that you remember the placement of Italian pronouns!
Let me show you two very similar sentences, but with a slight difference:
Lei sembra tanto carina.
She seems very nice.
Lei mi sembratanto carina.
She seems very nice to me.
Of course, if you want to specify that a person seems somehow, you do not need an indirect object pronoun, but you can use the name of that person. In this case, the indirect object is introduced by the preposition a.
For example:
A Marco e Loredana questa borsa sembra rotta.
This bag seems broken to Marco and Loredana.
A Luca questi dolci sembrano buoni.
To Luca, these sweets seem good.
