The pronominal verb FARCELA - meaning, use and conjugation

Hi, everybody! I'm Luca and this is an Italian language lesson.

Specifically, this is a lesson for those amazing people who understand Italian, but would like to improve their level. If you are one of them and wish to speak Italian well, you've come to the right place!

On this channel I regularly publish lessons on different topics related to the Italian grammar and language.

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In this lesson, I wanted to talk about Italian pronominal verbs. Specifically, I wanted to talk about the pronominal verb FARCELA.

This is probably one of the most common and most frequently used pronominal verbs and therefore you should definitely know it.

Needless to say, I take for granted that you already know the verb "fare". So in this lesson I'm not gonna explain the verb "fare", I'm gonna explain (just) the verb "farcela". So "fare" + "cela". You have this (pronominal) particle "ce la" which remains unchanged and is present in all forms.

So let's jump into it and see how the present tense of "farcela" looks like.

- Io ce la faccio,

- tu ce la fai,

- lui o lei ce la fa,

- noi ce la facciamo,

- voi ce la fate,

- loro ce la fanno.

So, as you can see, in the present indicative, forms match those of the verb "fare", except that you add the pronominal particle "cela". Or rather, the particle "ce" together with the particle "la". So we have a combination of these two particles.

You surely know (how to form the tense) "passato prossimo" of the verb "fare". In case of "farcela", passato prossimo is slightly different. The passato prossimo of (the verb) farcela is:

- io ce l'ho fatta,

- tu ce l'hai fatta,

- lui o lei ce l'ha fatta,

- noi ce l'abbiamo fatta,

- voi ce l'avete fatta,

- loro ce l'hanno fatta.

Alright. The main difference lies in the past participle. Because for the verb "fare" we have "fatto", whereas for the verb "farcela" we have "fatta". So in the verb "farcela" we use a (gramatically) feminine past participle.

As I said, the (pronominal) combination "cela" remains unchanged in all verb forms. In this case, for the "passato prossimo", you simply remove A and replace it with an apostrophe. Technically speaking, it should be "ce la ho fatta", but, given that "la ho" sounds bad, you remove A and add an apostrophe.

In other words, we don't say "la ho vista", we say "l'ho vista". Basically, the letter A is removed and replaced with an apostrophe. Similarly, we don't say "ce la ho fatta", but we say "ce l'ho fatta". You remove A.

Lastly, let's consider the future tense. What does the future tense of the verb "farcela" look like? Its forms are:

- ce la farò, ce la farai,

- ce la farà,

- ce la faremo,

- ce la farete,

- ce la faranno.

Again, these forms match those of the verb "fare", you simply add to them two pronouns, "ce" and "la". So, while for the verb "fare" the future tense is "io farò", for the verb "farcela" the future tense is "io ce la farò".

With respect to verb forms, well, I don't think that this pronoun verb is especially problematic.

But let's move to meaning. What does "farcela" mean?

"Farcela" essentialy means succeeding in doing something, completing something successfully, carrying out a given task successfully. Reaching a goal. Then, depending on each scenario, meaning could obviously be slightly different. But, generally speaking, "farcela" means succeeding in doing something.

So, if somebody tells me "Ce l'ho fatta!", I get that they managed to do what they wanted to do. They reached their goal. They succeeded.

By contrast, if they tell me "Non ce l'ho fatta!", I get that they failed, i.e. they didn't succeed in reaching their goal, they didn't succeed.

Similarly, if a friend of mine tells me about one of his projects, if he explains to me that he has a specific goal, if I tell him "Sono sicuro che ce la farai!". What do I want to say? I want to say: I'm pretty sure that you will succeed in reaching your goal. I'm sure you'll succeed.

Another example could be: "Il mio obiettivo era quello di pubblicare 300 video in meno di due anni. E ce l'ho fatta". What does the part "e ce l'ho fatta" mean? It means: and I succeeded, and I was able to do what I wanted. I've reached my goal.

Let's do an example with a plural subject. For instance, I could say: "Volevano mettermi in difficoltà, ma non ce l'hanno fatta". What does that mean? That they had this goal, their goal was to put me at a disadvantage, and to create problems for me, but "non ce l'hanno fatta". What does that mean? That they weren't able to do that. They didn't succeed. They failed. In other words, they wanted to put me at a disadvantage, but they didn't put me at a disadvantage.

In particular, please pay attention that if another verb follows, I mean another infinitive poiting to a goal, that is, to the wanted result - then, in that case, the pattern is "farcela a fare qualcosa", so you should use the preposition A.

For instance, going back to the example I made earlier: "Non ce l'hanno fatta a mettermi in difficoltà". Or: "Ce l'ho fatta a pubblicare 300 video".

That's it!

In general, if you want to learn Italian pronoun verbs well, I wanted to tell you that some time ago I made two rather long videos about two pronominal verbs, the verb "menare" and the verb "battere".

Specifically, in these videos I also examined pronominal verbs such as "menarsela", "menarla", "battersela", "sbattersene" and the like.

Alright, here you can find 2 cards to these 2 videos. I suggest that you take a look at them. Check them out!

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