Meaning of BEVE in Italian

How do you use the verb beve in Italian? What does it mean? How do you pronounce it?

In this lesson, we will look at how to use this word with the help of many audio recordings and example sentences. Read on to learn everything you need to know!

woman about to eat a meal - how do you use beve in italian and what does it mean

How to use beve in Italian

What is beve?

Beve is one of the present tense conjugations of the verb bere, which means to drink. To be more precise, it’s the third-person present tense conjugation of bere, which is a very irregular verb in Italian and means “he/she drinks”.

Let’s hear how it is pronounced.

Beve
He/she drinks

Its pronunciation is close to beh-veh. If you have trouble pronouncing Italian sounds, check out the Italian pronunciation guide.

Now, let’s see some example sentences with beve in Italian, before we take a look at how to use the verb bere along with its other present tense conjugations as well.

Title: Italian All-in-One For Dummies
Language: English / Italian
Publisher: For Dummies
Pages: 672

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Italian All-in-One For Dummies appeals to those readers looking for a comprehensive, all-encompassing guide to mastering the Italian language. It contains content from all For Dummies Italian language instruction titles, including Italian For Dummies, Intermediate Italian For Dummies, Italian Verbs For Dummies, Italian Phrases For Dummies, Italian Grammar For Dummies, and Italian For Dummies Audio Set.

Martina beve un bicchiere di aranciata.
Martina drinks a glass of orange soda.

Il gatto beve dalla fontana del parco.
The cat drinks from the fountain in the park.

Quanto beve un essere umano ogni giorno?
How much does a man being drink every day?

Il mio cane non beve quasi mai.
My dog hardly ever drinks.

dog drinking from a bowl

Now let’s see where beve in Italian comes from.


Usage of beve 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.

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Now, how would you conjugate the present tense of bere, “to drink”?

Remove the infinitive ending -ere and add -o!

Bere… ➡️ B-… ➡️ Io bo?

kid drinking a glass of water

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

This is because bere is an irregular verb. This is also why we will say beve in Italian, and never bo.

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

Present tense conjugation for bere

iobevo
tubevi
lui, leibeve
noibeviamo
voibevete
lorobevono
group of 4 friends drinking beer outside

For example, you could say…

Bevo almeno sei bicchieri d’acqua al giorno.
I drink at least six glasses of water a day.

Il terreno beve molta acqua.
The soil drinks (“absorbs”) a lot of water.

La mamma sgrida il bambino che beve direttamente dalla bottiglia.
The mother scolds the child for drinking directly from the bottle.

Cosa bevi di solito a colazione? – Un succo di frutta.
What do you usually drink for breakfast? – A fruit juice.

Non bevo mai caffè. Non mi piace.
I never drink coffee. I don’t like it.

cup of coffee

And that’s the end of our lesson on how to use beve in Italian!


What next?

Now that you’ve seen how to use beve in Italian, you might want to keep learning Italian online with these free Italian resources:

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