Io sono, tu sei…
Essere (to be) is the backbone verb of Italian. Yesterday you used one form of it; today you conjugate the whole thing and put a person behind every ending.
Day 2 of 100 · Roma
Before anything new, pull yesterday back from memory. Cover the screen and answer out loud:
- How do you say "I'm Sofia" in one word plus a name? (Sono Sofia.)
- You meet a shopkeeper you've never seen. Do you use tu or Lei? (Lei, the formal you.)
- And with a friend your own age? (tu.)
That little word sono was one form of the verb essere. Today you meet the other five.
Listen first: who's who
Read this short exchange twice. Don't translate word by word, just notice how many times a form of essere appears, and who each one points to.
Five words, four different forms of one verb: è, siete, siamo, sono. Once you own the full set, you can put anyone into a sentence.
The pattern: essere, in full
essere — to be
This is the whole present tense. Say each row out loud as you read it:
| Pronoun | essere | English |
|---|---|---|
| io | sono | I am |
| tu | sei | you are (informal) |
| lui / lei / Lei | è | he / she is · you are (formal) |
| noi | siamo | we are |
| voi | siete | you are (plural) |
| loro | sono | they are |
Notice one honest quirk: io sono and loro sono share the same form. Context (and often the person's name) tells them apart, so it never trips you up in real speech.
Those words in the first column are the subject pronouns: io, tu, lui, lei, noi, voi, loro. Here is the day's big idea: Italians usually drop them. The verb ending already tells you who. Sei italiano? can only mean "are you Italian?", so tu is redundant. You add a pronoun only for contrast or emphasis: Io sono di Roma, lei è di Milano.
The formal Lei ("you", polite) borrows the exact same verb form as lei ("she"): both take è. The only signal is the capital letter in writing, and the context in speech. So Lei è italiano? means "Are you Italian?" said politely to a stranger, while lei è italiana means "she is Italian." Same sound, different respect.
Today's words
The pronouns you just met, plus a handful of words that pair naturally with essere. The band shows how common each is: the lower the number, the more you'll hear it.
Watch the endings on the descriptors: a man is stanco, a woman is stanca. Agreement is coming properly in Week 2; for now, just notice it.
One tiny mark does real work in this lesson:
- è (with the grave accent, an open /ɛ/) is the verb, "is": Marco è italiano.
- e (no accent, a closer /e/) is just the word "and": Anna e Paolo.
Say them back to back: Anna e Marco… Marco è stanco. The accented è is more open and a touch stressed. On the plural forms, the stress lands on the first vowel of the ending: siAmo, siEte. Land it there and you sound right.
Put a person behind every ending
- Conjugate essere. Give the right form for each subject: (a) io, (b) tu, (c) Marco, (d) noi, (e) voi, (f) Anna e Paolo. (→ sono, sei, è, siamo, siete, sono)
- Drop the pronoun. Rewrite each sentence the way an Italian would actually say it: "Io sono stanco." → "Sono stanco." · "Tu sei italiano?" → "Sei italiano?" · "Noi siamo qui." → "Siamo qui."
- è or e? Fill each gap: "Anna ___ Paolo" (and) · "Marco ___ contento" (is) · "Siamo qui, ___ siamo stanchi" (and).
- Say it back. Cover the English and read the dialogue aloud twice, once as Anna, once as Paolo. Hold the stress on siAmo and siEte.
To your phone's voice recorder, describe three people out loud. Use a different form each time:
- Yourself, with io sono: "Sono [your name], sono contento/a."
- One other person, with lui è or lei è: "Lui è Marco, è italiano."
- Two people, with loro sono: "Loro sono studenti, sono di Roma."
Play it back. Did you drop the pronoun where you could? Did the endings match the people? That is the whole verb, working.
Natives almost never lead with the pronoun. They say Sono stanco, not Io sono stanco. Dropping io isn't lazy, it's correct, and it's the fastest way to stop sounding translated. Keep the pronoun only when you want the contrast: Io sono di Roma, tu di Milano.
Darsi del tu: when Italians drop the formality
The moment two people agree to stop being formal, someone says "diamoci del tu" (let's use tu with each other). It's a small social milestone, a signal of warmth and equal footing. Younger Italians reach for it fast, often defaulting to tu among peers from the first hello, while Lei still rules with elders, officials, and strangers of a certain age.
Where formal Lei came from
Lei as a polite "you" grew out of Renaissance courtly address: you spoke to a noble through titles like "Vostra Signoria" (Your Lordship), a feminine phrase that pulled the feminine pronoun lei along with it, under strong 16th-century Spanish influence. Centuries later, Mussolini's regime tried to abolish Lei as foreign and effete, pushing Voi in its place. It didn't stick. Lei outlived the ban and is still the everyday polite you.
- essere in full: sono, sei, è, siamo, siete, sono. It's the backbone verb, worth memorising cold.
- Italians usually drop the subject pronoun: the ending already says who. Add it only for contrast.
- è (with the accent) is "is"; e (no accent) is "and". One mark, two meanings.
- Formal Lei takes the same form as lei ("she"): both use è.