The Italian grammar code cracked

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GENDER & NUMBER

Italian nouns and adjectives all have a masculine and feminine gender and a number  (singular and plural) and they all virtually end in a vowel

	singular	plural
masculine	vin-o	vin-i
	libr-o	libr-i
feminine	pizz-a	pizz-e
	cas-a	cas-e

 
* only foreign words end in a consonant:
hotel;
sport;
computer
* some other nouns can end in a stressed vowel -
gioventu’, youth
citta’, citta’
virtu’,virtue
caffe’, coffee
tassi’. taxi
pipi’ - pee

Masculine and feminine nouns in Italian - determining the gender

Three general rules can help you understand how gender works with Italian nouns

Masculine nouns

Nouns ending in -o are almost exclusively masculine

masculine singular
vin-o	wine
ragazz-o	boy
zuccher-o	sugar

Feminine nouns

Nouns ending in -a are almost exclusively feminine

feminine singular	plural
tavol-a - table	tavol-e
zi-a - aunt	zi-e
lampad-a - lamp	lampad-e

Nouns endin in -e

For Italian nouns ending in -e, it is not easy to predict the gender as some are masculine and others are feminine

masculine	feminine
il pallon-e - football	la stazion-e - railway station
il giornal-e - nespaper	la lezion-e - lesson
il cortile - courtyard	la prigion-e - prison

However for nouns ending in -e you can apply this framework

Nouns ending in

• - ale - giornale; finale; sale (newspaper; finale; salt)
• - ile - cortile; campanile; porcile (courtyard; bell tower; pigsty)
• - ore - calciatore; attore; fiore (soccer player; actor; flower)
• - glione - maglione; zabaglione; medaglione (sweather; zabaglione; medallion)

are almost always masculine

as a mnemonic use this mental image:

un calciat-ore che indossa un ma-glione legge il giorn-ale su un campan-ile
a soccer player wears a sweater and reads a newspaper in a bell tower


Nouns ending in

• sione televisione; confusione; tensione
• zione  - colazione; azione; stazione
• gione  ragione; religione; stagione

are almost always feminine

as a mnemonic use this mental image:

c’e’ confu-sione nella pri-gione a cola-zione
there is confusion in the prison at breakfast

3 principles to form the plurals 

There are three principles that can help you predict how nouns and adjectives will end in the plural

i) Nouns and adjectives ending in  - a in the singular end in - e in the plural

singular	plural
- a	- e
ros-a	ros-e
cas-a	cas-e
ari-a	ari-e

ii) All nouns and adjectives ending in any other vowel such as -o -e -i end in -i in the plural

singular	plural
-o -e -i	- i
vin-o	vin-i
giornal-e	giornal-i
cris-i	cris-i

iii) All nouns and adjectives ending in stressed vowels - a’ - e’ o’ u’ - i’  or a consonant - do not change in the plural

singular	plural
-a’ -e’ -u’ -i’ -consonant	-a’ -e’ -u’ -i’ -consonant
citta’ - city	citta’
caffe’ - coffe	caffe’
gioventu’ - youth	gioventu’
pipi’ - pee	pipi’
sport, computer, ananas	sport computer, ananas

To sum up

	singular	plural
words ending in	- a	- e
words ending in	- o; -e; -i	- i
words ending in	- a’; e’; i’; o’; u’, -consonant	unchanged

 This category of nouns are almost always masculine

ALBERI - trees

il pero	the pear tree
il melo	the able tree
il noce	the nut tree
il castagno	the chestnut tree

METALLI - ore

l’oro	gold
l’argento	silver
lo zinco	zinc
il ferro	iron

PUNTI CARDINALI - cardinal directions

il nord	North
il sud	South
l’est	East
l’’ovest	West

MESI, GIORNI (except for domenica- Sunday- which is feminine)

il giovedì;	the pear tree
il venerdi’	the able tree
marzo	the nut tree
aprile (months are not capitalized and don’t take the article)	the chestnut tree

FIUMI, MONTI MARI - rivers, mountains, seas

il Kappa due	K2
Il Monte Bianco	Mont Blanc
Il Mediterraneo	Mediterrenean sea
Il Pacifico	The Pacific
Il Missisipi	Mississipi river
Il Tamigi	The Thames

WINES - vini

Il prosecco	Prosecco wine
Il Merlot	Merlot wine
Il Barolo	Barolo wine
Il Montepulciano	Montepulciano wine

OK guys, we saw last time that you use che to replace subjects or direct objects. With verbs that take indirect objects (usually a noun preceded by a preposition) use the preposition + cui. In English this is rendered by expressions like “to which,” “with whom,” etc.

For example:

C’è un negozio qui vicino.

Sono stato altre volte in questo negozio.

=

C’è un negozio qui vicino in cui sono stato altre volte. (There’s a store near here I’ve been to before.)

Ti faccio conoscere una ragazza.

Ti parlavo della ragazza ieri.

=

Ti faccio conoscere la ragazza di cui ti parlavo ieri. (I'll let you meet the girl I was talking to you about yesterday.)

This can be a bit tricky for English speakers because we now just tack the preposition onto the end of such a sentence – “What’s the name of that place we went to?” (Instead of, "What's the name of that place to which we went?")

When forming these types of sentences in Italian, translate from a stiff prissy Victorian English version of what you want to say.

Preposition + definite article + quale means the same as preposition + cui, but is more clear and specific.

For example:

Ecco Marco e Maria con cui ho seguito un corso di matematica. (Here are Marco and Maria with whom I took a math class.)

Ecco Marco e Maria con la quale ho seguito un corso di matematica.

In the first sentence you took math with both, in the second with Maria only.

As usual, hopefully some practice in the activities section will help you get it. If not, feel free to email! C4N.

Comments

[Keith]

Great post on cui! It's such a tricky part of Italian grammar!