Italian word of the day
Sembra is a present tense conjugation of the verb sembrare, which means to seem. To be more precise, it’s the third-person present tense conjugation of sembrare, which is a regular verb in Italian, translating as “he/she/it seems”.
Sembra
He/she/it seems
Examples
Mi sembra che il treno sia in ritardo.
It seems to me that the train is late.
Quando ci si diverte, il tempo sembra volare.
When you’re having fun, time seems to fly by.
Il tuo piano non sembra migliore del mio.
Your plan doesn’t seem better than mine.
Nessuno sembra conoscere la risposta.
Nobody seems to know the answer.
Sara sembra nervosa.
Sara seems nervous.
Use of sembra 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:
amare ➡️ am-
prendere ➡️ prend-
mentire ➡️ ment-
Italian verb endings for each tense are added to these root forms of the verb.
Now, how would you conjugate the present tense of sembrare, “to ask”, if I told you that the ending for io, I, is -o?
Take away the infinitive ending -are and add -o!
Sembrare… ➡️ Sembr-… ➡️ Io sembro?
That’s right! 🙂 This is why we will also say sembra in Italian, because the third-person conjugation adds -e as we will see.
So let’s look at the present tense conjugation of sembrare along with its pronunciation.
Present tense conjugation for sembrare
| io | sembro |
| tu | sembri |
| lui, lei | sembra |
| noi | sembriamo |
| voi | sembrate |
| loro | sembrano |
For example, you can say…
Sembra che siamo arrivati con qualche minuto di anticipo.
We seem to have arrived a few minutes early.
Sembri avere fretta.
You seem to be in a hurry.
Odio le zanzare, ma loro sembrano amarmi.
I hate mosquitoes, but they seem to love me.
Sembrate spaventati. Che cosa è successo?
You look scared. What happened?
Sembri un ottimo nuotatore.
You seem to be a very good swimmer.
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