Italian Nouns - Articles and Demonstratives

Learn about singular and plural nouns in Italian

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Italian Nouns: Articles and Demonstratives / Articoli e dimostrativi

 

All nouns in Italian have a gender (masculine or feminine) and the articles must agree with the gender. Masculine words generally end in -o and feminine words generally end in -a. Words that end in -e may be either, so you will just have to memorize the gender. Keep in mind that articles are used before nouns or before an adjective + a noun.

Definite Article - The

Masculine				Feminine
il	eel	sing., before consonants		la	lah	sing., before consonants
lo	low	sing., before z, gn, ps, or s + cons.
l'	l	sing., before vowels		l'	l	sing., before vowels
i	ee	plural, before consonants		le	leh	plural, before consonants and vowels
gli	lyee	plural, before vowels, z, gn, or s + cons.

Indefinite Articles - A, an, some

	Masculine			Feminine
A, An	un	oon	before consonant or vowel	una	oon-ah	before consonants
	uno	oon-oh	before z, gn, ps, or s + consonant	un'	oon	before vowels
Some	dei	day	before consonants	delle	dell-eh	before vowels and consonants
	degli	deh-lyee	before vowels, z, gn, or s + cons.

Demonstratives - This, that, these, and those

This and these
	This	These
Masc.	questo	questi	before a consonant
	quest'	questi	before a vowel
Fem.	questa	queste	before a consonant
	quest'	queste	before a vowel
That and those
	That	Those
Masc.	quel	quei	before a consonant
	quell'	quegli	before a vowel
	quello	quegli	before z, gn, or s + consonant
Fem.	quella	quelle	before a consonant
	quell'	quelle	before a vowel

If you use that and those as a subject, use these four forms: quello for masculine singular, quella for feminine singular, quelli for masculine plural, and quelle for feminine plural.

 

Plural Nouns

If a word is masculine singular, change the last letter to an i.  If a word is feminine singular, change the last letter to an e if it ends in a, or if it ends in e, change it to an i.

Singular to Plural Nouns

Masculine
-o	-i
-a	-i
-e	-i
Feminine
-a	-e
-e	-i

Words ending in -io can either change the o to i, or just simply drop the o to form the plural. When the -i of -io is stressed, the plural is -ii; however, most words ending in -io do not stress the -i, and so their plurals are formed by dropping the o. Compare: lo zio - gli zii and il figlio - i figli.

Some nouns ending in -co and -go may or may not insert an h before changing the o to i.  There is no general rule for it.  All nouns ending in -ca and -ga insert an h before changing the a to e.  Nouns ending in an accented vowel do not change for the plural. (la città (city) becomes le città)  There are some masculine nouns that end -a, and these nouns change the -a to -i in the plural: il programma, il poeta, il pianete, il pilota, il poema, il sistema.  The plural of l'uomo (man) is gli uomini, while the plural of la mano (hand) is le mani.

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