Masculine and feminine in Italian - Italian grammar | Italiano Bello (2024)

FAQs

How to tell if an Italian word is masculine or feminine? ›

Answer and Explanation:

The word for Italy in French is a feminine noun. It is spelled slightly differently from English: Italie. With feminine nouns, the definite article in French is la.

Answer and Explanation: The word spaghetti is masculine in French, since the original Italian word is a masculine noun.

The masculine words are: un cappuccino, un succo, un aperitivo, un amaro, uno spuntino, un cornetto, uno scontrino, uno spumante. The feminine words are: una cioccolata, un'aranciata, una spremuta, una birra, una pizza, una brioche, un'acqua minerale, una pasta.

The easiest clue is to check the ending of the word as, generally, words ending in -o (plural ending in -i) are masculine while words ending in -a (plural ending in -e) are feminine.

In Spanish 'vacation' is 'vacaciones'. It is a feminine noun that is uncountable and it is used only in the plural form.

Châtain (chestnut) doesn't agree in gender, but it does in number.

The subjunctive mood in Italian, which includes the present, present perfect, past, and future forms, is widely considered as one of the most challenging grammatical concepts for English speakers to grasp. This is primarily because subjunctive constructions are not commonly utilized in the English language.

But you'll probably find that Italian is slightly easier than French. Grammar-wise, they're fairly similar in complexity. Most of this discrepancy goes back to French pronunciation being less phonetic than Italian, but that also depends on what kind of learner you are.

What are the 7 grammar rules? ›

Bello for both men and women

We can use the adjective bello (with its appropriate endings) to describe either a man or a woman. In English, we might say "a beautiful man," but it's more customary to say "handsome" for a man.

bello, bella. beautiful, lovely, nice. maschile, femminile.

Bella is the feminine singular for “beautiful” in Italian. Taken together, ciao bella is a colloquial, familiar way of saying “hello” or “goodbye” to one woman (as opposed to a group). The masculine version of the expression is ciao bello.

Articles in Italian always agree with the gender of the nouns they precede: if the indefinite article introducing the noun ending in -e is masculine (un or uno) the noun will be masculine as well; if the article is feminine (una or un'), the same can be said for the noun.

A useful general rule to remember is that, nearly always, nouns ending in -o are masculine and nouns ending in -a are feminine. Nouns ending in other letters can be either.

Nouns ending in -e may be masculine or feminine: studente (m.), caffè (m.) and automobile (f.), notte (f.)