What is all the fuss about essere and avere in Italian? Why do we bring up this topic so often in our grammar lessons? Essere and avere have their own meanings, be and have, but they are also used to form compound tenses.

What is a compound tense? The English present perfect, for example: I have done. Have is an auxiliary here, it helps or supports the verb to do. English has many auxiliaries, but to form compound tenses it uses have. In Italian, instead, we can use have, avere, or be, essere. So we say Io ho fatto and Io sono andato. We cannot say *Io ho andato, it would sound awful! But how to choose? There are a few rules that can help us remember.