
As said before the article in Italian can be masculine, feminine, singular and plural.
In this article we will focus on the indefinite article and we will see some common exceptions that affect the noun.
In English there are only two indefinite singular articles: a, an.
In Italian we have: UN, UNO, UNA, UN’
Some examples are:
un cane è in giardino – a dog is in the garden – masculine
un amico è insieme a noi – a friend is with us – masculine
uno stivale è rotto – a boot is broken – masculine
una casa è bianca – a house is white – feminine un’amica è andata via – a friend has gone away – feminine
We can use UN for masculine nouns either with consonant or vowel.
We must use UNO before sounds like: SP, ST, SC or Z or GN.
We use UNA before feminine nouns beginning with a consonant and
We use UN’ before feminine nouns beginning with a vowel.
plural
The partitive article DEI, DEGLI, DELLE is used to form the plural.
This article is formed using the preposition DI (meaning OF) and the definite articles I, GLI, LE.
Sometimes we use ALCUNI, ALCUNE. They are indefinite adjective meaning SOME.
We can transform the previous examples using the plural form.
Dei cani sono in giardino – masculine plural
degli amici sono insieme a noi– masculine plural
degli stivali sono rotti– masculine plural
delle case sono bianche – feminine plural
delle amiche sono andate via – feminine plural
Nouns general rules
The formation of the noun in Italian follows some general rules:
A for feminine nouns
La casa – le case
O for masculine nouns
Il giardino – i giardini
E for masculine and feminine
Il piede – i piedi
La chiave – le chiavi
main exceptions
But we have many exceptions, the most common are the following:
Masculine words ending in A – il problema, il tema, il cinema, il papà
Feminine words ending in O – la mano, la radio, la moto, la metro
Or
Words that change completely from masculine to feminine:
il padre/la madre il fratello/la sorella il marito/la moglie l’uomo/la donna
or
words that do not change like
cantante –il/un cantante – la/una cantante – una cantante – feminine
or studente – lo/uno studente – la/una studente (it is common to hear also – una studentessa)
other two common nouns that behave in the same way are:
collega – colleague – il collega/la collega
and
parente – relative – il parente/la parente
In this article we have seen the most common features of the indefinite article and the most usual exceptions of the nouns.
Here there are some exercises. I hope you will find them useful to practice what you have learnt until now. Buon lavoro!