Present perfect of  avere  and  essere Essere  or  avere ? 9 Deciding whether to use  essere  or  avere  can be a bit of a problem. The only fi rm rules are those governing  transitive  verbs (i.e. verbs which can have a direct object) and  re fl exive  verbs (see Unit 20). Transitive verbs always use avere ; re fl exive verbs always use  essere . As for intransitive verbs, some use  avere  and others  essere . In general, it can be said that verbs of movement (such as  andare  (to go),  venire  (to come), partire  (to leave),  uscire  (to go out),  entrare  (to go in/come in)) or non- movement (such as  rimanere  (to remain),  restare  (to stay/remain)), and verbs of state (such as  essere ,  diventare  (to become),  cambiare  (to change),  crescere (to grow)) use the auxiliary  essere . However, this is not a hard and fast rule: there are intransitive verbs which take  avere . 8 Like the present, the present perfect of  essere  can be used with the pronoun ci  (see Unit 4):  c’è stato / stata  (there was/has been),  ci sono stati / state  (there were/have been): Essere  forms the present perfect with the auxiliary  essere : 7 Avere  forms the present perfect with the auxiliary  avere : ho avuto hai avuto ha avuto abbiamo avuto avete avuto hanno avuto I had/have had you had/have had he/she/it had/has had we had/have had you had/have had they had/have had sono stato / stata sei stato / stata è stato / stata siamo stati / state siete stati / state sono stati / state I was/have been you were/have been he/she/it was/has been we were/have been you were/have been they were/have been La settimana scorsa abbiamo avuto ospiti. Tanya ha avuto la varicella. Nina è stata malata. Des è stato mio studente. Last week we had guests. Tanya has had chickenpox. Nina has been ill. Des was a student of mine. C’è stata un’alluvione. Ci sono stati troppo incidenti. There was/has been a  fl ood. There were/have been too many accidents. 88 Unit 12