#142: Understanding verbs — farcela
The verb, farcela, means:
- to manage (to)
- to be able to
It is synonymous with riuscire + a. The difference is that farcela is more colloquial and idiomatic and attempts to convey a greater sense of emotion and purpose. Non farcela means ‘to be unable to cope’ or ‘to be unable to go on’.
Farcela is a tricky verb that employs the particle, ci, and the direct object pronoun, la. With this verb, Ce (ci becomes ce when combined with another pronoun) and la must precede the verb:
- Ce la fai a comprare i biglietti per il concerto?
Are you able to buy the tickets for the concert?
The preposition, a, precedes the infinitive:
- Ce la faccio a studiare con tutto il rumore.
I am managing to study with all the noise.
In compound tenses, farcela, takes avere and the past participle is always in the feminine singular:
- Ce l’abbiamo fatta a trovare l’albergo.
We managed to find the hotel.
Remember, that the pronoun, la elides with avere (as seen in the example above).
Here’s a conjugation of farcela in the present and the passato prossimo:
Present tense:
(io) ce la faccio
(tu) ce la fai
(lui/lei/Lei) ce la fa
(noi) ce la facciamo
(voi) ce la fate
(loro) ce la fanno
Passato prossimo:
(io) ce l’ho fatta
(tu) ce l’hai fatta
(lui/lei/Lei) ce l’ha fatta
(noi) ce l’abbiamo fatta
(voi) ce l’avete fatta
(loro) ce l’hanno fatta
For a complete conjugation of farcela, click here.
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Ciao!
Sembra che ci cono troppi ”compound tenses”
In compound tenses(1), farcela, takes avere in compound tenses(2) and the past participle is always in the feminine singular:
Grazie per la lezione:)
Grazie!
I corrected the duplicate information. Thanks for pointing out my typo.
thank you for this very simple, easy to understand, explanation of farcela! consulted 2 grammar books, searched on several grammar sites, untill I found ILGUR, I will happily spread the news. was wondering if you could recommend any good quality courses italian in Italy for this summer (3 weeks intnsive). Thanks a lot!! Sabine
what does the ce la bit actually mean tho? ci generally means to “it/to there” and la is the direct object form of lei (i.e. the feminine third person singular pronoun), but why is feminine used? Are there other similar words?
Hi there!
This is one of those instances where you can’t assign a specific translation to “ci” as it doesn’t have any concrete translation. It’s just a function of Italian grammar.
“Ci” functions as a particle, not as an adverb. I wrote a post on the use of “ci” – you might want to check it out to see if it clears up your questions.
There are other verbs that function this way. I’ll try to make a list of them and post them soon.