Italy is synonymous with good eats!

Learn how to talk about eating, with the main Italian verb for eat: mangiare. Find out how to pronounce it, and how to use it in the present, past, and command forms. 

Not only that:

Let’s dig in!

Table of Contents

The main Italian verb in Italian for eat is mangiare. It is a regular verb with the ending -are. Mangiare means to eat. Stay tuned to find out how to use it in action!

The pronunciation of mangiare is: mahn-jee-AH-reh

Listen to how to pronounce mangiare here:

Quando vado in Italia ho un solo obiettivo: mangiare!When I go to Italy I have just one goal: to eat! 

Have you ever heard Italians say magnare (pronounced mahn-ee-AH-reh), or magnà (mahn-ee-AH)? This is the verb magnare, which is mangiare (to eat) in Roman dialect, but it is used even more widely throughout Italy, especially in the south.

Mangiare (to eat) follows the regular pattern of verbs ending in -are. So:

You’ll see that the Italian subject pronouns are in parentheses. This is because you often don’t need to include the subject or subject pronoun: you can figure out who the subject is from the verb conjugation.

Mangiamo sempre tardi giovedì sera perché ho la lezione di cucina alle 18.We always eat late on Thursday night because I have a cooking lesson at 6 pm.

Non mangi la carne? You don’t eat meat?

To talk about eating in the past, you can use the passato prossimo form. To do it, conjugate the auxiliary verb (in this case, avere), and add the past participle: mangiato. 

The passato prossimo usually corresponds to both the simple past and the present perfect in English. For example, the passato prossimo of mangiare is ate, or has/have eaten. 

Here is the complete conjugation of mangiare (to eat) in the passato prossimo:

Sara e Piero hanno mangiato al nuovo ristorante giapponese ieri sera.Sara and Piero ate at the new Japanese restaurant yesterday evening.

The Italian table is sacred, a place for family and friends to gather around meals of delicious food. Not only that, standard mealtimes give shape to the ark of the day.

What if it’s 1pm, your stomach is growling and you want to get things rolling? Or it’s time to get people to the table at mealtime? Italians have quite a few ways to say Let’s eat!

È ora di mangiare means It’s time to eat. 

Andiamo a mangiare means Let’s go eat.

A tavola! is a phrase you’ll hear in Italian homes up and down the peninsula. The literal translation is To the table! and you’d better get there quick or the pasta will get cold.

Tutti a mangiare! is similar to the last phrase. It means Everybody eat! so hurry up and get to the table.

Si mangia is the impersonal form of mangiare. It literally means one eats, but the sense is let’s eat, or we’re eating.

Mangiamo! means let’s eat! when said as a command.

Here are some examples of these phrases in action:

La pasta è pronta. A tavola!Lunch is ready. To the table!

Ora che abbiamo fatto il brindisi, si mangia! Now that we’ve made a toast, let’s eat!

When everyone has gathered around the table, even if it’s just two people, it’s polite to wish them buon appetito. Similar to the French phrase bon appetit, buon appetito means enjoy your meal. 

If you are bidding goodbye to someone who is off to have a meal, you can wish them:

Buon pranzo, or enjoy your lunch, have a good lunchBuona cena, or enjoy your dinner, have a good dinner

These two phrases usually aren’t used at a meal: use buon appetito at the meal if you are eating with the person. 

Is your companion feeling shy about digging into their lasagne? Do you want to offer them the last piece of bruschetta? You can say mangia!

Mangia! is a word you’ve probably heard in films or tv shows with Italian characters. It is one conjugation of the command form, or the imperative (l’imperativo) of the verb mangiare. Use the imperative to tell someone to go ahead and eat, like this:

Mangia! means Eat! in the informal singular you form. Use it when speaking to someone you know well.

Mangi! means Eat! in the formal singular you form. Use it when speaking to someone you don’t know well, an elder, or someone with superior social status.

Mangiate! means Eat! in the plural you form. Use it when speaking to a group. 

Mangiamo! means Let’s eat!

The Italian day is punctuated by clearly defined meals, instead of being an all day snack-fest. 

However, the verb to use with these meals is not mangiare, but fare. For example, to say eat lunch, say fare pranzo. To say eat a snack, say fare merenda. 

Io e Caterina facciamo cena insieme sabato sera.Caterina and I eat dinner together on Saturday night.

Mi piace fare colazione al bar, hanno i cornetti buonissimi.I like eating breakfast at the bar, they have great croissants.

There are also two verbs that you can use directly:

pranzare means to eat lunchcenare means to eat dinner

Non pranzo mai al ristorante. I never eat lunch at a restaurant.

To describe how you eat, you can add an adverb to the verb mangiare, like this:

Giuseppe mangia poco a cena. Giuseppe eats little at dinner.

Abbiamo mangiato molto bene al matrimonio di Saverio. We ate very well at Saverio’s wedding/The food was very good at Saverio’s wedding.

Oggi devo mangiare di fretta se voglio arrivare in orario alla riunione. Today I must eat in a rush if I want to be on time for the meeting. 

To talk about where you eat, you can say:

Stasera Giovanni le porta a mangiare fuori. Tonight Giovanni is taking her out to eat.

When Italian meals are especially abundant and over the top (for example at the holidays), here are a few good words:

Sono ancora piena dopo l’abbuffata di Natale.I’m still full after the huge Christmas meal.

Someone has to eat all that delicious Italian food, it might as well be us! Here are some phrases related to doing a lot of eating.

Al ristorante di pesce ci siamo fatti una mangiata di cozze.At the seafood restaurant we ate a ton of mussels.

Here are some other verbs that mean to eat in Italian, besides mangiare: