Italian word of the day
| Pronunciation | |
| English translation | He/she/it asks |
| Origin | From the Italian verb chiedere, “to ask” |
Chiede is a present tense conjugation of the verb chiedere, which means to ask. To be more precise, it’s the third-person present tense conjugation of chiedere, which is a regular verb in Italian, translating as “he/she asks”.
Examples
| La maestra chiede qualcosa allo studente. | The teacher asks the student for something. |
| Luca ti chiede un grosso favore: lo accompagneresti alla festa? | Luca asks you a big favor: would you accompany him to the party? |
| Il cane chiede il permesso di uscire. | The dog asks for permission to go outside. |
| Il bambino chiede di comprare un nuovo giocattolo. | The child asks to buy a new toy. |
Use of chiede 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:
tremare ➡️ trem-
piovere ➡️ piov-
cucire ➡️ cuc-
Italian verb endings for each tense are added to these root forms of the verb.
Now, how would you conjugate the present tense of chiedere, “to ask”?
Remove the infinitive ending -ere and add -o!
Chiedere… ➡️ Chied-… ➡️ Io chiedo?
That’s right! 🙂 This is also why we say chiede in Italian, because the third-person conjugation adds -e.
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