How to Learn Articles in Italian

Giuseppe Verdi

Some languages do not have articles, like Latin. Many languages have articles to modify nouns or noun clauses. Italian is such a language. You might be interested to learn how as a basis for learning further Italian language.

Steps

Preliminaries

1. Learn italian pronounciation. It is recommended to learn Italian pronunciation at How to Pronounce Italian Words
2. Learn at the beginning these words in Italian:
   • Gender: il genere (/il/ /dʒε-ne-re/, m).
   • Feminine: il femminile (/il/ /fεm-mi-ni-le/, m).
   • Masculine: il maschile (/il/ /ma-schi-le/, m).
   • Article: l'articolo (/lar-ti-co-lo/, m).
   • Definite: determinativo (/de-ter-mi-na-ti-vo/).
   • Indefinite: indeterminativo (/in-de-ter-mi-na-ti-vo/).
   • Singular: il singolare (/il/ /sin-go-la-re/, m).
   • Plural: il plurale (/il/ /plu-ra-le/, m).
3. Know that in Italian language nouns have genders. That is they are considered as being feminine (shown by letter f ) or masculine (shown by letter m).
4. Note that some languages have neutral, but Italian has not neutral. A noun might not be recognised at first whether being feminine or masculine but that word will be forced into one of the categories.

Recognise gender

1. Recognise easily genders from the face of the words as,
   • Feminine singular: Any noun ends to letter 'a' is femminile.
     • To build feminine plural: drop 'a' and replace it by 'e'
   • Masculine singular: Any noun ends to letter 'o' is maschile.
     • To build masculine plural: drop 'o' and replace it by 'i'
2. When a noun does not end to 'a' or 'o' it ends to 'e' and could not be recognised as being feminine or masculine.
3. To build plural of these nouns drop the ending 'e' and replace it with 'i' (similar to masculine plurals).
4. When you do not recognise gender of a noun immediately from its face, there are two ways to know them as,
   • First, the owner of the noun shows it:
     • Padre (father) is masculine.
     • Madre (mother) is feminine.
   • Second, you have to memorise it when first you learn it, such as la notte (the night), which is femminile.
     • Always learn Italian words with their articles (and hence their gender) as part of the vocabulary. In English you do not have to do this since there is no difference in gender of the articles; the man or the woman.
     • Not that trying to make the road so difficult for you, but if you are really adamant to learn a foreign language it is better to learn the vocabulary with division of each word into its syllables.
     • And knowing which syllable is stressed.
     • This will be achieved by constant referring to a good quality dictionary of that language.
5. The concerned noun clause will follow the gender of the noun; modifiers (adjectives) and articles.
   • il mio padre (my father).
   • la mia madre (my mother).
     • Note this. Gentile (/dʒεn-ti-le/) means delicate. Then il gentil sesso figuratively means le donne; that is, women plurally, while the phrase is a masculine clause.
     • Owner of speech is not important. A girl says, "il mio padre."
     • Object of the speech is not important too. A man says, "il mio amore" since l'amore (love by itself) is maschile (masculine).
   • Adjective agrees with the gender of the modified noun (and comes after the noun, in contrast to English). Hence,
     • il fiore rosso (red flower - flower masculine).
     • la penna rossa (red pen - pen feminine).
     • le carti rosse (red papers - papers plural feminine).
   • Adjective follows masculine when it modifies both masculine and feminine. Hence,
     • il fiore et la penna sono rossi.

Indefinite Articles

1. Celebrate that indefinite articles (a, an) is easy to know in Italian.
   • femminile (feminine):
     • una (a, one) is used for all feminine words beginning with consonants.
       • una madre.
       • una donna.
       • una notte.
     • un' (an, one) is used for all feminine words beginning with vowels. Then you write it as part of the noun.
       • un'amica.
       • un'arte.
       • un'isola.
   • maschile (masculine): There is no difference between nouns beginning with a consonant or a vowel.
     • un (a, one) is used for all masculine words beginning with consonants.
       • un padre.
       • un giorno.
       • un nome.
     • un (an, one) is also used for all masculine words beginning with vowels. Then you write it as part of the noun, attached to it.
       • un amico.
       • un uomo.
       • un esame.
     • uno (a, an, one) is used for masculine words when
       • noun begins with s-impura. uno studente (unvoiced), uno sbaglio (voiced).
       • noun begins with z. uno zero.
       • noun begins with (i, gn, pn, ps) + vowel. uno ione, uno gnomo, uno pneumatico, uno pseudonimo.

Definite Articles

1. Remember that definite articles (the) come as singolare, or plurale. Each form is different for femminile or maschile.
   • Definite feminine articles, singolare, are:
     • la : when noun begins with a consonant. la madre, la sorella.
     • l' : when noun begins with a vowel and l' will be written as part of the noun. l'Inglese, l'arte.
   • Definite feminine articles, plurale, are:
     • le : when noun begins with a consonant. le madri, le sorelle.
     • le : when noun begins with a vowel. le Inglesi, le arti.
       • Usually le before 'e' contracts into it. Hence le estati becomes l'estati. But both are correct.
   • Definite masculine articles, singolare, are:
     • il : when noun begins with a consonant. il padre, il fratello.
     • l' : when noun begins with a vowel and is written as part of the noun. l'Inglese, l'amore.
     • lo (the) is used for masculine, singolare, words when,
       • noun begins with s-impura. lo studente (unvoiced), lo sbaglio (voiced).
       • noun begins with z. lo zero.
       • noun begins with (i, gn, pn, ps) + vowel. lo ione, lo gnomo, lo pneumatico, lo pseudonimo.
   • Definite masculine articles, plurale, are:
     • i : when noun begins with a consonant. i padri, i fratelli.
     • gli : when noun begins with a vowel. gli Inglesi, gli amori.
       • Usually gli before 'i' contracts into it. Hence gli Inglesi becomes gl'Inglese. But both are correct.
     • gli (the) is used for masculine, plurale, words when,
       • noun begins with s-impura. gli studenti, gli sbagli (note that it is not sbaglii as it should; frequently this happens when plural ends to double i).
       • noun begins with z. gli zeri.
       • noun begins with (i, gn, pn, ps) + vowel. gli ioni (or gl'ioni), gli gnomi, gli pneumatici, gli pseudonimi.

Attaching Form of Definite Articles

1. Note that sometimes you need to attach (fuse) definite articles to the word that comes before the article.
2. Learn change of articles as,
   • il in attached form becomes : l. Hence, some becomes (di + il = del)
   • la in attached form becomes : lla. Hence, some becomes (di + la = della)
   • lo in attached form becomes : llo. Hence, some becomes (di + lo = dello)
   • l' in attached form becomes : ll'. Hence, some becomes (di + ll' = dell')
   • i in attached form remains as : i. Hence, some becomes (di + i = dei)
   • le in attached form becomes : lle. Hence, some becomes (di + le = delle)
   • gli in attached form remains as : gli. Hence, some becomes (di + gli = degli)

Tips

• It is interesting to know that la mano (una mano) is feminine. Its plural is le mani.
• Also l'uovo (un uovo) becomes le uova in plural. the same rule applies to il dito (le dita), il lenzuolo (le lenzuola) and some other words.

Things You'll Need

• Besides an ordinary Italian - English/English - Italian dictionary you need a very high quality Italian dictionary showing feminine/masculine, gramatical roles, and most important of all, syllables and stressed syllable of each word, using phonetic symbols. A good dictionary usually includes ethymology (evolution) of words.

Related How To's

• How to Pronounce Italian Words
• How to Learn Pronouns in Italian
• How to Count in Italian
• How to Tell Time and Date in Italian