Weilà raga! I hope you liked the 6th episode of Grammar Basics! What I taught in that video is definitely Advanced Italian, so if you're feeling a little confused, its totally understandable!
Before I write everything out I explained in the video, I just want to share with you guys a trick that I used when studying this verb tense for the first time. I used to always refer to it as the "Woulda, Coulda, Shoulda Tense." That's how I remembered when to use Potere and Dovere as the helping verbs.
I always remembered that with Would, there's no helping verb. But with Could, C is at the beginning of the alphabet, but its corresponding verb in Italian starts with the letter P, for Potere, a letter towards the end of the alphabet. Then with Should, S is at the end of the alphabet, and its corresponding verb in Italian starts with a letter at the beginning of the alphabet, D, for Dovere. I hope this makes sense and is able to help some of you guys out.
So here's what I went over in the video:
Let's begin with Would.
Here are the ARE, ERE, and IRE verb endings for saying WOULD in Italian:
ARE & ERE share the same verb endings:
io - erei noi - eremmo
tu - eresti voi - ereste
lui/lei - erebbe loro - erebbero
IRE verb endings:
io - irei noi - iremmo
tu - iresti voi - ireste
lui/lei - irebbe loro - irebbero
Let's now conjugate MANGIARE, a regular ARE verb in the conditional tense:
io mangerei - I would eat
tu mangeresti - you would eat
lui/lei mangerebbe - he/she would eat
noi mangeremmo - we would eat
voi mangereste - you all would eat
loro mangerebbero - they would eat
Just note: though Mangiare is a Regular ARE verb, you do eliminate the I after the G when conjugating it, this happens in some other verb tenses also, such as the Future Tense.
Now, onto saying COULD. We use POTERE as the helping verb, its an irregular verb, and we conjugate it in the conditional tense. Here are the verb endings for POTERE and also DOVERE (which we'll get to later on):
io - rei noi - remmo
tu - resti voi - reste
lui/lei - rebbe loro - rebbero
Potere:
io potrei - I could
tu potresti - you could
lui/lei potrebbe - he/she could
noi potremmo - we could
voi potreste - you all could
loro potrebbero - they could
Here's how you say COULD EAT:
io potrei mangiare - I could eat
tu potresti mangiare - you could eat
lui/lei potrebbe mangiare - he/she could eat
noi potremmo mangiare - we could eat
voi potreste mangiare - you all could eat
loro potrebbero mangiare - they could eat
To say SHOULD, you conjugate DOVERE in the Conditional Tense, in a similar way to POTERE:
io dovrei - I should
tu dovresti - you should
lui/lei dovrebbe - he/she should
noi dovremmo - we should
voi dovreste - you all should
loro dovrebbero - they should
Here's how you say SHOULD EAT:
io dovrei mangiare - I should eat
tu dovresti mangiare - you should eat
lui/lei dovrebbe mangiare - he/she should eat
noi dovremmo mangiare - we should eat
voi dovreste mangiare - you all should eat
loro dovrebbero mangiare - they should eat
Here's how you conjugate a Regular IRE verb (Dormire - to sleep) in the conditional tense. The verb endings are show above, but they're very similar to the ARE and ERE verb endings:
io dormirei - I would sleep
tu dormiresti - you would sleep
lui/lei dormirebbe - he/she would sleep
noi dormiremmo - we would sleep
voi dormireste - you all would sleep
loro dormirebbero - they would sleep
Here's how you conjugate a REGULAR ERE (LEGGERE - to read) verb in Italian, it follows the same verb endings as I showed above for ARE verbs:
io leggerei - I would read
tu leggeresti - you would read
lui/lei leggerebbe - he/she would read
noi leggeremmo - we would read
voi leggereste - you all would read
loro leggerebbero - they would read
Here's the video:
As always, remember to SPREAD THE LOVE! :)
Tom