Italian · Chapter 1 · Lesson 12 · Grammar primer
Essere and avere: the two verbs Italian is built on
Irregular everywhere, and every compound tense is assembled from them. This is the one place in beginner Italian where rote learning is genuinely the right tool.
The short version
Sono andato is right; ho andato is wrong
Italian builds its compound past from essere or avere, and which one a verb takes is not free. Verbs of motion and change of state take essere, and their ending then agrees with the subject, so a woman says sono andata. Most other verbs take avere and the ending does not move at all.
Lei e uscita.
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