The first ten to learn are *essere*, *avere*, *fare*, *andare*, *stare*, *dare*, *dire*, *venire*, *potere* and *volere*. They're the most frequent verbs in the language and nearly all irregular — which is exactly why they're worth tackling first rather than putting off.
Why these ten
In every language the most-used verbs are also the most irregular, and it isn't a coincidence: they wear down through daily use like the steps of a staircase. The more frequent a verb, the more its shape has deformed over centuries.
The practical conclusion runs against intuition: exceptions don't belong at the end, they belong at the beginning. A beginner who knows the regular conjugations but can't say vado and faccio can't build a single everyday sentence.
Essere and avere deserve their own place: as well as being verbs in their own right, they're the auxiliaries that build every compound tense. Getting them wrong means getting half your past-tense sentences wrong.
The families that cut the workload
Many irregularities repeat. Learn venire and you've already got tenere: vengo/tengo, vieni/tieni, viene/tiene. Learn potere and you'll recognise the pattern in volere and dovere.
Verbs in -durre (tradurre, produrre, condurre) all behave the same way, as do those in -porre (porre, comporre, supporre).
Learning them in families rather than alphabetically cuts the work substantially: long tables are long mostly because they repeat the same pattern under different names.
The way that makes them stick
Don't recite conjugations from first person to last: that chain is only recallable from the start, and in speech you need one form, immediately.
Learn them inside a short real sentence instead: vado a casa, faccio colazione, posso aiutarti, voglio provare. The verb sticks together with the context you'll actually use it in.
And focus on the present before anything else. The Italian present also covers the near future (domani vado a Roma) and carries almost all of everyday conversation.
Related questions
How many irregular verbs does Italian have?
Several hundred in total, but the distribution is heavily skewed: about twenty cover the overwhelming majority of everyday use, and the rest turn up rarely.
Should I learn regular or irregular verbs first?
Together. The three regular patterns (-are, -ere, -ire) take an hour, and right after them you need the ten most frequent irregulars, without which you can't build a normal sentence.
Updated 2026-07-29