How to use the Italian verb 'MANCARE'

A super useful and common verb in Italian is MANCARE. A verb with many different meanings.  

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The most common one is the translation of MANCARE with the English verb TO MISS.

How would you say I miss you in Italian?

• manco tu?
• manchi me?
• manca me?

The answer is MI MANCHI and YES you do have to use a horrible indirect pronoun before the verb! I will first explain this meaning and then add different meanings later on. The verb mancare is similar to the verb piacere. Both of these verbs have an irregular conjugation and they are called impersonal verbs. This means that you will need to remember to use indirect object pronouns in the third person singular and plural. 

Check out this chart:

This is the formula that you need to remember:

• Mi manca + singular noun / verb (in the infinitive form)
• Mi mancano + plural noun

So how can you translate the following sentence: Examples:

• Mi manca la mamma → I miss mom
• Ti manca la Francia? → Do you miss France?
• Mi mancano i miei gatti → I miss my cats

Quick extra info: When the person who misses something is mentioned in the conversation you will need to add the preposition A before the noun and the formula changes a little bit and you eliminate the pronoun:

For example,

• A Marco manca la mamma – Marco misses his mom 
• A Marie manca la Francia – Marie misses France
• Ai miei genitore manca viaggiare – My parents miss travelling

You can also have more fun and replace the person mentioned with an indirect pronouns… if you need to review those check my previous videos! I will link them ini the comment box.

Now here are the examples…. use the same sentences that we mentioned before and let’s add the correct pronouns:

• Gli (a Marco) manca l’Italia – He misses his mom
• Le (a Marie) manca la Francia – She misses France
• Gli (ai miei genitori) manca viaggiare – They miss travelling

As I told at the beginning of the video the lesson 'mancare' can have many meanings. 

One of these meanings is to say that something is missing 

For example:

• manca una forchetta a tavola – one fork is missing from the table 
• mancano due bambini all’appello – two boys are missing from roll-call
• non manca niente – nothing is missing
• qui manca tutto! - Everything is missing over here!