Have you ever helped a child with their Maltese homework and been unsure how to conjugate a verb or where the għ and h go?

Did you resort to referring to the voluminous dictionary by Prof Joseph Aquilina or asking the online community on Facebook how best to conjugate a verb, risking misspelling the word?

A new website – www.verb.mt – has come to the rescue with over 6,000 conjugated verbs accessible from any online device.

And the reference website – that took Reuben Degiorgio two years to compile – is set to remain free for users after the National Literacy Agency stepped in to sponsor it.

Degiorgio, who worked as a translator, reviser and terminologist in the Maltese translation unit at the Council of the European Union for some nine years, set about compiling the verbs after noticing people would ask online forums the same questions about verb conjugations over and over again.

“They would ask which model to use and how to actually use it, where to put the għ or h, to which form does a certain verb belong to... I told myself this just won’t do, especially at a time when everyone instinctively consults the internet for anything.

“It was glaringly obvious that we were missing an essential digital resource, so I decided to create one myself from scratch,” he said.

Inspired by the Bescherelle guide, considered the French verb conjugation bible, Degiorgio spent two years painstakingly conjugating every single verb, consulting with language experts when he was unsure.

“I wanted this to be a very complete source of information, so all the Maltese verbs that I could find are in there – even rare or archaic ones. When people think about

Maltese verbs, for some reason the only ones that come to mind are those of Arabic origin. I made sure to also include those verbs originating from Italian such as (i)kkonċentra (concentrate), awgura (augur) or sforza (force) and English such as (i)ttajpja (type), (i)pparkja (park), (i)ċċarġja (charge) because they are part and parcel of our language and should be treated as such.”

Degiorgio says verb.mt has also become popular overseas with those learning Maltese but living in Australia, Canada and the US, among others.

While there are other references and guides on Maltese verb conjugations, some are limited to just some examples while others are not reliable. Verb.mt is also the only website solely dedicated to Maltese verbs.

Degiorgio is also the man behind Għidha bil-Malti (Say it in Maltese), which kicked off in 2017 as a small Facebook page to promote a renewed sense of appreciation of the Maltese language and to encourage Maltese speakers to use the language properly.

On Għidha bil-Malti, Degiorgio shares with thousands of users anything from common orthographic mistakes to examples of Maltese names for newborns.

Għidha bil-Malti, which is also on Instagram and Threads, has since branched off to other side projects such verb.mt, qawl.mt (website dedicated to Maltese sayings, a work in progress ), Ismijiet Maltin (an extensive list of every Maltese name) and a website featuring some of the content posted on social media.