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Is the subjunctive important in Italian?

Italian

asked by
Diego
published
about 5 years ago
Sometimes I see a conjugation called "subjunctive" like "sia" but I can't understand when I should use it and if it's any important.
1 answer
answered by
Davi
published
about 5 years ago

Ciao! 😀

The subjunctive in Italian is quite a tricky topic because yes, it is important. It's part of the grammar and it's used. But it's not used as much as you may think for two main reasons.

  1. It's difficult
  2. It can be confusing.

But when do you use it? Mostly it's used when it comes to thoughts, opinions, beliefs, hopes etc. therefore it's used with verbs such as

Credere To believe

Pensare To think

Sperare To hope

Supporre To suppose

and sometimes even

Volere To want

When it comes to written Italian (formal) it's quite important to use it. But when it comes to speaking, it's mostly used with the verb "to be". For the other verbs, since it can create confusion since the first three conjugations (io, tu, lui) are often the same, it's often avoided.

I give you the link to the article where I discuss it even further and I provided some more information in Subjunctive in Italian.

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