Nouns and gender

Every Italian noun is masculine or feminine. This affects articles, adjectives, and pronouns.

The two genders

Gender	Definite article	Example
Masculine	il / lo / l'	🔊 il libro (the book)
Feminine	la / l'	🔊 la casa (the house)

Predicting gender

Masculine patterns

Ending	Examples
-o	🔊 il libro, 🔊 il vino, 🔊 il ragazzo
-ore	🔊 il colore, 🔊 l'amore
-iere	🔊 il cameriere (waiter)

Feminine patterns

Ending	Examples
-a	🔊 la casa, 🔊 la donna, 🔊 la pizza
-zione	🔊 la stazione, 🔊 la nazione
-tà/-tù	🔊 la città, 🔊 la gioventù
-ie	🔊 la serie

Nouns ending in -e

Can be either gender; must be memorized:

• 🔊 il ristorante (m) — restaurant
• 🔊 la notte (f) — night
• 🔊 il padre (m) — father
• 🔊 la madre (f) — mother

Definite articles

Gender	Before consonant	Before z, s+consonant, gn, ps	Before vowel
Masc. sing.	il	lo	l'
Masc. pl.	i	gli	gli
Fem. sing.	la	la	l'
Fem. pl.	le	le	le

Indefinite articles

Gender	Article	Example
Masculine	un / uno	🔊 un libro, 🔊 uno studente
Feminine	una / un'	🔊 una casa, 🔊 un'amica

Plural forms

Singular ending	Plural ending	Example
-o (m)	-i	libro → 🔊 libri
-a (f)	-e	casa → 🔊 case
-e (m/f)	-i	notte → 🔊 notti
-ca/-ga	-che/-ghe	amica → 🔊 amiche
-co/-go	-chi/-ghi	amico → 🔊 amici

Adjective agreement

Adjectives agree with nouns:

Masc. sing.	Fem. sing.	Masc. pl.	Fem. pl.
alto	alta	alti	alte
grande	grande	grandi	grandi

Most adjectives follow the noun:

• 🔊 una casa grande — a big house
• 🔊 un libro interessante — an interesting book

Some come before (bello, buono, grande, piccolo, giovane, vecchio):

• 🔊 una bella donna — a beautiful woman
• 🔊 un buon vino — a good wine

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