Italian Nouns - Articles and Demonstratives

Learn about singular and plural nouns in Italian


Learn Italian phrases, vocabulary, and grammar with audio recordings by native speakers - ielanguages.com Buy Italian Language Tutorial as a PDF e-book! Italian Language Tutorial includes a complete vocabulary and grammar review of the Italian language (much more than what is available online), with realia photos of the Italian language taken in Italy. The PDF e-book and mp3s - including nearly three hours of recordings by three native speakers - are available for immediate download with FREE lifetime updates. Thank you for supporting ielanguages.com! Download the first ten pages of Italian Language Tutorial (including the table of contents).

Buy Italian Language Tutorial


To download the mp3s, please purchase Italian Language Tutorial. Need even more Italian? Try the Italian courses at Udemy, the authentic videos with subtitles and translations at Yabla Italian or FluentU, and the audio and video lessons at ItalianPod101.com

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 Italian Exercises

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.


 

Italian Phrases, Vocabulary, and Grammar with free audio

 



Buy ielanguages.com language tutorials

If you enjoy the tutorials, then please consider buying French, Informal French, Italian, Spanish, German, Swedish, or Dutch Language Tutorials as a PDF e-book with free mp3s and free lifetime updates.

Buy French Tutorial

Buy Informal French

Both French e-books

Buy Italian Tutorial

Buy Spanish Tutorial

Buy German Tutorial

Buy Swedish Tutorial

Buy Dutch Tutorial





Please consider sending a donation of any amount to help support ielanguages.com. Thank you!

Donate




Return to top of page






Learn languages with videos and subtitles at FluentU

FluentU offers authentic videos in French, Spanish, German, English, Chinese and Japanese. Learn from captions and translations and enjoy access to ALL languages!

Learn languages with videos and subtitles at Yabla

Learn Spanish, French, German, Italian, Mandarin Chinese and English with authentic videos by Yabla that include subtitles and translations.



Learn languages by reading Interlinear Books

Learn to read languages with interlinear bilingual books that include the original language and an English translation below in a smaller font.

Udemy Language Learning Courses

Hundreds of free and paid online language learning video courses at Udemy. By native speakers and experts, from Arabic to Zulu.






© | About | Disclaimer | Privacy Policy