Italian Verb Conjugations: 'Credere'

Credere is a regular second-conjugation Italian verb meaning to believe or think. It can be a transitive verb, which takes a direct object, or intransitive verb, which does not. Credere is conjugated with the auxiliary verb avere, "to have."

Conjugating "Credere"

The tables give the pronoun for each conjugation—io (I), tu (you), lui, lei (he, she), noi (we), voi (you plural), and loro (their). The tenses and moods are given in Italian— presente (present),  passato prossimo (present perfect), imperfetto (imperfect),  trapassato prossimo (past perfect) passato  remoto (remote past), trapassato remoto (preterite perfect), futuro semplice (simple future), and futuro anteriore (future perfect)—first for the indicative, followed by the subjunctive, conditional, infinitive, participle, and gerund forms.

INDICATIVE/INDICATIVO

SUBJUNCTIVE/CONGIUNTIVO

CONDITIONAL/CONDIZIONALE

IMPERATIVE/IMPERATIVO

INFINITIVE/INFINITO

Presente: credere

Passato: avere creduto

PARTICIPLE/PARTICIPIO

Presente:  credente

Passato: creduto

GERUND/GERUNDIO

Presente: credendo

Passato: avendo creduto

Understanding Second-Conjugation Italian Verbs

Verbs with infinitives ending in -ere are called second-conjugation, or  -ere, verbs. The present tense of a regular -ere verb is formed by dropping the infinitive ending -ere and adding the appropriate endings to the resulting stem.

To form the first-person present tense of credere, drop the -ere and add the appropriate ending (o) to form credo, which means "I believe." There is a different ending for each person, as demonstrated in the above conjugation tables.

The other regular Italian verbs end in -are or -ire and are referred to as first- and third-conjugation verbs, respectively. Though the infinitive endings for these verbs are different, they are conjugated in the same way as second-conjugation verbs.