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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.
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. |
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. |
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.
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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