[Answer by CivisRomanus to a question originally posted on 12/12/17 on the Duolingo Italian for English speakers forum by GianniEquizi (quoted)]
Hi there! I recently started learning Italian and whilst i mostly understand words and phrases where I’m up to, I’m really struggling to memorize the verb conjugations and could do with some help. If there are any tips to help me further my knowledge and understanding of conjugations or anything else, it would be really helpful.
Thanks.
As Linda suggested, the key to learning verbs is the pattern of each tense, which is rather similar across the three conjugations. In most cases, the inflection (i.e. the variable part of the verb, which in the tables below is highlighted in red) is more or less the same, with the exception of the initial vowel, which can be unique for each conjugation, or it can be shared by two conjugations while the third one is different (in the tables below these vowels are underlined).
The following description concerns the four simple tenses of the indicative mood.
Present tense
Three persons (namely, the first person singular, the second person singular and the first person plural) share exactly the same inflections.
The third person singular takes -a (1st conjugation) and -e (the other two).
The second person plural, instead, begins with a unique vowel, -a- for the 1st, -e- for the 2nd, and -i- for the 3rd conjugation.
The third person plural begins with -a- for the 1st conjugation and -o- for the other two.
About half the verbs of the third conjugation add -isc- to their stem before taking the inflection. Beware that only four out of six persons add -isc-, but the first and second persons plural do not.
There is no way to predict which verbs of the 3rd conjugation take -isc-, so this feature has to be looked up in a dictionary and memorized.
The additional -isc is only found in the present tense (including the present subjunctive, which is not shown in these tables).
Imperfect tense
The inflection begins with a unique vowel for each conjugation (-a-, -e-, -i-). The rest of the inflection is the same, across the three conjugations.
Simple future tense
In this tense the inflection begins with -e- in the 1st and 2nd conjugations, and with -i- in the 3rd. The rest of the inflection is the same, across the three conjugations.
Simple past (passato remoto)
In this tense the inflection begins with a unique vowel (-a-, -e-, -i-). Beware that the third person singular, whose inflection is the vowel itself (which also bears a graphic accent), in the 1st conjugation has -ò instead of -à.
The first person singular of the 3rd conjugation ends with a double ‘i‘ (-ii). This is not redundant, as the longer sound of the inflection allows to tell it from that of the third person (-ì), which is shorter.
Unfortunately, almost every verb belonging to the 2nd conjugation has an irregular passato remoto tense, in which three persons usually follow a different pattern: the first person singular, and both third persons (singular and plural).
The very few verbs with a regular passato remoto (such as ricevere) always have also alternative verb forms for the aforesaid persons, e.g. standard: io ricevei, alternative: io ricevetti; the latter is more commonly used than the regular one, but both of them are correct.
All the aforesaid patterns refer to regular verbs.
Italian has also many irregular verbs, most of which belong to the 2nd conjugation. Their irregularities often affect also the stem of the verb.
Almost every verb of the 1st conjugation is regular, but some of them require slight phonetic adjustments. For instance, the verb mangiare (stem: mangi-) goes:
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io mangio
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tu mangi (not mangii, the second ‘i‘ would be redundant)
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lui/lei mangia
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noi mangiamo (not mangiiamo, for the same reason)
The verb giocare (stem: gioc-) goes:
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io gioco
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tu giochi (with an extra ‘h‘, because gioci would sound different)
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lui/lei gioca
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noi giochiamo (with an extra ‘h‘, for the same reason)
Similar adjustments usually do not apply to verbs of the 2nd and 3rd conjugations. For instance, leggere (stem: legg-) goes:
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io leggo
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tu leggi (not legghi)
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lui / lei legge (not legghe)
And agire (stem: ag- + extra -isc-) goes:
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io agisco
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tu agisci (not agischi)
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lui / lei agisce (not agische).
Duolinguists 