Arguably, one of the most important verbs you should familiarize yourself when learning Italian is the verb avere, which means to have. We will go over some uses and examples of the verb in this lesson.
Here is the present indicative tense:
io ho – I have
tu hai – you (familiar) have
Lui / lei (Lei) ha – he, she or you (formal) have
noi abbiamo – we have
voi avete – you (plural) have, for example, you all have
loro hanno – they have
Avere is a verb that can indicate possession, or ownership of an object as in English, such as owning dog, a cat, a house, a car, etc.
However, avere is also a verb that is used to express if someone is hungry, hot or cold, thirty, tired, etc.
In English many of these would be translated with the verb to be, but in Italian they use the verb average (to have).
For example:
ho fame – Literally means I have hunger, or I am hungry
hai fame – Literally means you have hunger, or you are hungry
ha fame – Literally means he or she or you (formal) has hunger, or he, she or you (formal) is / are hungry
abbiamo fame – Literally means we have hunger, or we are hungry
avete fame – Literally means you all have hunger, or you all are hungry
hanno fame – Literally means they have hunger, or they are hungry
As you can see it is an irregular verb, which means it does not follow a normal, fixed conjugation pattern. In other words, it all must be memorized.
Many verbs are conjugated with avere (along with essere) to form a compound tense. Essere in Italian is a verb that means: to be.
Compound tense for avere can be formed by using
Simple tense of avere + past participle of principal verb
Here is an example with the verb to eat (mangiare).
ho mangiato – I ate
hai mangiato – you (familiar) ate
ha mangiato – he / she / you (formal) ate
abbiamo mangiato – we ate
avete mangiato – you all (you plural) ate
hanno mangiato – they ate
Some other examples of the verb avere
avere caldo – to be hot (lit. to have hot)
avere freddo – to be cold (lit. to have cold)
avere sete – to be thirsty (lit. to have thirst)
avere fretta – to be in a hurry (lit. to have hurry)
avere sonno – to be sleepy (lit. to have sleepy)
avere paura (di) – to be afraid (of) (lit. to have fear)
avere ragione – to be right (lit. to have right)
avere torto – to be wrong (lit. to have wrong)