Venire, venni, venisti, Venne, ???

[DonnaPellegrin]

I could really use help from someone who has mastery of the Italian language. I am attempting to write a letter to someone in Italy. I cannot seem to find the correct conjugation for the past tense of venire (to come).

I know this much:

I came = io venni
you (familiar) came = tu venisti
he came = lui venne
we came = noi ??????
you (formal) came = voi ??????
they came = loro ???????

The sentence I am trying to write is:
They came to West Virginia

Any help would be most appreciated!

[suanj]

Ciao Donna:



I came = io venni
you (familiar) came = tu venisti
he came = lui venne
we came = noi venimmo
you (formal) came = voi veniste
they came = essi vennero

The sentence I am trying to write is:
They came to West Virginia
Loro( or Essi) vennero in West Virginia
suanj

[DonnaPellegrin]

Grazie infinite, suanj! Lei è molto gentile.

[MindyP]

The conjugation offered by by suanj is correct, in the passato remoto, which is generally a tense used to describe an event in the distant past, i.e., back in the early 1900's, a long long time ago, etc. The more conversational and "current" past tense would be:

io sono venuto/a
tu sei venuto/a
lui/lei e' venuto/a
noi siamo venuti/e
voi siete venuti/e
loro sono venuti/e

So if you're trying to say "They came to West Virginia" last week, last month, last year, or a few years ago, it would be "Sono venuti nel West Virginia", but if "They came to West Virginia" after the end of World War II, or at the turn of the century, it would be "Loro vennero nel West Virginia". You generally only see or hear the passato remoto used in literature (and in some regional dialects), but not in everyday spoken Italian.

I hope this helps!

--Mindy

[suanj]

The conjugation offered by by suanj is correct, in the passato remoto, which is generally a tense used to describe an event in the distant past, i.e., back in the early 1900's, a long long time ago, etc. The more conversational and "current" past tense would be:

io sono venuto/a
tu sei venuto/a
lui/lei e' venuto/a
noi siamo venuti/e
voi siete venuti/e
loro sono venuti/e

So if you're trying to say "They came to West Virginia" last week, last month, last year, or a few years ago, it would be "Sono venuti nel West Virginia", but if "They came to West Virginia" after the end of World War II, or at the turn of the century, it would be "Loro vennero nel West Virginia". You generally only see or hear the passato remoto used in literature (and in some regional dialects), but not in everyday spoken Italian.

I hope this helps!

--Mindy

Hi Mindy:
-this is Passato prossimo, for say about last days or weeks;

-also are Imperfetto for say about some year :
io venivo
tu venivi
egli veniva
noi venivamo
voi venivate
essi venivano

-are Passato Remoto as already we know ..many years..

-also and are Trapassato remoto with help of "essere (to be)" :
io fui venuto
tu fosti venuto
egli fu venuto
noi fummo venuti
voi foste venuti
essi furono venuti
suanj

[DonnaPellegrin]

OK, sorry it took me so long to respond to this thread. Before I could reply, I had to study your messages, study my high school English book and study my little, semi-worthless Italian language book. Now let me see if I’ve got this straight.

There are 6 verb tenses in English:
Present, Past, Future, Present Perfect, Past Perfect and Future Perfect

There are 8 verb tenses in Italian:
Present, Imperfect, Future, Passato Remoto, Passato Prossimo, Past Perfect, Trapassato Remoto and Future Perfect

Now, for the sake of my sanity, lets confine this thread to the 5 past tenses.

1. The Imperfetto tense in Italian is used to express the English idea of “used to.â€Â

[wldspirit]

I don't know if you have this already....thought I'd pass it along.
Thanks go to Xaymara for the reccomendation!!

wldspirit
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

For studying verbs, this is the best book around
501 Italian Verbs
by John Colaneri, Vincent Luciani
Publisher: Barron's Educational Series; 2nd edition (February 1, 2001)
ISBN: 0764113488
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/de ... 4113488/vi
It sells for $10.17 in Amazon but usually Borders has it stock.

[DonnaPellegrin]

God Bless you, wldspirit! I have ordered it from Amazon along with a couple other gems. Thanks a million. It was good to stuggle through the conjugation of venire and I learned a lot but I will definitely enjoy help from this book!

[wldspirit]

I can use all the blessings god has to spare.....
I to have been struggling with verbs, ( and I thought U.S. english class was a pain )

Happy reading.......
wldspirit