Abbiamo

Italian word of the day

Pronunciation
English translation	We have
Origin	From the Italian verb avere, “to have”

Abbiamo is one of the present tense conjugations of the verb avere, which means to have. To be more precise, it’s the first-person plural present tense conjugation of avere, which is a very irregular verb in Italian and means “we have”.

Examples

Abbiamo due cani e tre pappagalli.	We have two dogs and three parrots.
Abbiamo dimenticato qualcosa?	Have we forgotten anything?
Non abbiamo le chiavi per aprire la porta.	We don’t have the keys to open the door.
Abbiamo fame!	We are hungry!

Using abbiamo in Italian

You probably already know that the indicativo presente (present tense) conjugation for the pronoun io adds the ending -o to the root of the verb, or stem (see note for more info).

What’s the stem of a verb?
Italian infinitive verbs end in -ARE, -ERE and -IRE.
Cut off this part and you are left with the root verb.
Examples:
sudare ➡️ sud-
credere ➡️ cred-
dormire ➡️ dorm-
Italian verb endings for each tense are added to these root forms of the verb.

Now, how would you conjugate the present tense of avere, “to have”?

Remove the infinitive ending -ere and add -o!

Avere… ➡️ Av-… ➡️ Io avo?

You may be surprised to learn that the correct conjugation is actually io ho.

This is because avere is an irregular verb. This is also why we will say abbiamo in Italian, and never avo.

That said, let’s look at the present tense conjugation of avere along with its pronunciation.

io	ho
tu	hai
lui, lei	ha
noi	abbiamo
voi	avete
loro	hanno

Examples

Avete un accendino?	Do you have a lighter?
La squadra ha vinto la finale di campionato.	The team has won the championship final.
Hai visto i miei occhiali?	Have you seen my glasses?
Non ho cani, ma ho tre gatti.	I have no dogs, but I have three cats.
Ho 20 anni.	I am 20 years old.

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