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I had an exercise to put the verb in passato prossimo form.
The sentence:
Eravamo tutti allegri, ... (camminare) per circa due ore.
I used camminare with essere, because I thought about the rule, that it's the verb with moving meaning (like andare, venire). But in the answers it used with avere. Camminare is also an intransitive verb, which by rules should be with essere.
So I'm confused. Could anyone help me, please?
The point is that not all verbs with moving meaning have "essere" as auxiliary verb to form compound tenses. The following explanation can be found in the book Grammatica e pratica della lingua italiana per studenti stranieri by Federica Colombo:
Alcuni verbi richiedono l'ausiliare essere, si tratta di verbi intransitivi indicanti moto, stato e cambiamento di stato. Quelli più frequenti sono: essere, andare, stare, rimanere, venire, arrivare, tornare, diventare, nascere, morire.
! I seguenti verbi di moto, invece, formano il passato prossimo con avere: camminare, girare, nuotare, passeggiare, sciare, viaggiare.
Siamo stanchissimi perché abbiamo camminato per ore.
Quest'anno ho sciato solo una volta.
So, as you can see, "camminare", as well as "girare", "nuotare", "passeggiare", "sciare", "viaggiare" are verbs of motion which require "avere" as auxiliary verb.
So, you must say:
Eravamo tutti allegri, abbiamo camminato per circa due ore.
Although most of the verbs of movement use the auxiliary verb ESSERE in Italian (andare, venire, entrare, uscire, etc.), there are some verbs that use the auxiliary AVERE. One of these verbs is 'camminare'. So, for example we say: Ieri ho camminato per due ore (Yesterday I walked for two hours). Other verbs like 'camminare' are 'passeggiare' or 'girovagare'.
Also remember that there are some verbs of movement that take the auxiliary verb ESSERE if they are used in an intransitive way, but they take the auxiliary verb AVERE if they are used in a transitive way. One of these verbs is 'salire'. For example: 'Sono salito a casa di corsa' BUT 'Ho salito le scale di corsa'.
