Easy Learning Italian Grammar (2011)

NOUNS

What is a noun?

A noun is a naming word for a living being, a thing, or an idea, for example, woman, Andrew, desk, happiness.

Using nouns

1. The basics

In Italian, all nouns, whether referring to living beings or to things and ideas, are either masculine or feminine. This is their gender.

The letter a noun ends with is often a reliable guide to its gender. For instance, words ending in –o will nearly always be masculine.

When you use an Italian noun you need to know if it is masculine or feminine so that you can make other words that go with it masculine or feminine too:

how you translate the words for ‘the’ or ‘a’ depends on the noun’s gender. For instance, with masculine nouns you use il and un, and with feminine nouns you use la and una.

adjectives describing a noun are masculine or feminine in form.

words that replace nouns – called pronouns – must also be masculine or feminine. The translation for Do you want it? is “Lo vuoi?” if you’re offering un gelato (an ice cream), and “La vuoi?” if you’re referring to una mela (an apple).

For more information on Articles, Adjectives or Pronouns, see pages 10, 20 and 40.

Just like English nouns, Italian nouns can be singular or plural. Most English nouns add –s in the plural, for example, days, apples. Most Italian nouns change their final letter from one vowel to another:

Tip

When in doubt, you can find out a noun’s gender by looking it up in a dictionary. When you come across a new word it’s a good idea to memorize the article that goes with it, to help you remember its gender.

Key points

All nouns in Italian are either masculine or feminine.

This affects the words you use with them.

In most cases it is possible to work out a noun’s gender from its ending.