Essere o Avere? How to pick the right auxiliary for Italian verbs.

Italian, unlike English, has two different auxiliary verbs: Essere and Avere. Similarly to English, auxiliaries in Italian are mainly used to support other verbs when forming composite tenses, such as Passato Prossimo, and other grammatical voices, such as passives. Deciding which is the right auxiliary for a specific verb can be tricky, however, there are some simple rules that can help you in picking the correct one.AVEREAvere is mainly used as an auxiliary for active transitive verbs. These are verbs that can accept one or more direct objects (i.e. an object not introduced by a preposition) and are being used in their active form (as opposed to passive). An example of a transitive verb is mangiare: e.g. Anna mangia la mela. In order to determine whether a verb is transitive or not, we can check whether they can support a complement that answers the questions “chi?” (who?) or “che cosa?” (what?). If the answer is yes, then we can be sure that the verb is a transitive one and requires avere as an auxiliary. In the example above, we can ask “Anna mangia che cosa?”. So we know that mangiare accepts a direct object and thus needs avere as auxiliary: e.g. Anna ha mangiato la mela. Avere is also used as an auxiliary for some intransitive verbs or intransitive uses of transitive verbs. For example, other verbs that require avere are: parlare, dormire, ballare, camminare, viaggiare, telefonare. Some example sentences: Giulia ha parlato con la maestra.Abbiamo viaggiato in largo e in lungo.Carla mi ha telefonato ieri. Finally, avere is an auxiliary of itself: e.g. Ho avuto la febbre la scorsa settimana.ESSEREEssere, on the other hand, is used always with:Reflexive verbs (i.e. verbs whose object is the same as the subject) such as lavarsi, alzarsi, vedersi, etc.e.g. Mi sono svegliato alle 7 di mattina.Impersonal verbs (i.e. verbs with no given subject)e.g. Che cosa è successo? Passives (i.e. verbs whose subject is undergoing the action) e.g. Il postino è stato morso dal cane dei vicini.Essere (just like avere, essere is an auxiliary to itself)e.g. Sono stato molto attento durante la lezione.Other verbs that almost always are accompanied by essere are intransitive verbs that indicate movement (e.g. andare, arrivare, tornare), verbs that indicate a change in state (e.g. nascere, morire, crescere), and verbs denoting permanence or stability in state (e.g. stare, restare, rimanere). These are very useful guidelines to follow, although remember that there are some exceptions (i.e. some intransitive verbs want avere rather than essere).