eo, ire, ii, itus - to go

[hamdivazim]

A common verb in English and Latin is the verb to go, and this verb is a bit irregular in both languages.

Judging from the first principal part, you might guess that the verb is of the second group conjugation, but the infinitive and perfect stem say otherwise; ire is a fourth conjugation verb. It is mostly regular in the present active, so let's take a look at the conjugation:

eo - I go
is - You go
it - He/She/It goes
imus - We go
itis - You all go
eunt - They go

It is only irreular in the ego and iī conjugations, starting with an e instead of the expected i.

The imperfect tense is also quite regular, going like ibam, ibas..., but if we take a look at another fourth conjugation verb's imperfect conjugation...

audiebam, audiebas...

The e is dropped from the stem, so we would have expected "iebam" instead of "ibam".

The future tense is unusual as you would expect to go like, iam, ies, iet... but it instead goes like ibo, ibis....

The perfect stem is interesting, as you can use ii or ivi interchangeably. I tend to use ii more often, as it makes more sense to me:

The e was dropped from the stem in the imperfect tense, so it would make sense to drop the v out of the perfect stem, but you can use whichever you are comfortable with.

In the passive voice, the i is replaced for an e in the ego and iī conjugations in the present, so it would conjugate as so:

eor
iris
itur
imur
imini
euntur

Here are some example sentences:

"quando Iure tempore est, nostros hostes oppungnare ibo." - "When it is the right time, I will go to attack our enemies."
"filii scholam ire nolunt." - "The children do not want to go to school."