UNIT ONE
Nouns: gender and number
Gender: masculine and feminine
1 All Italian nouns are either masculine or feminine. The best way to remem-
ber the gender of a noun is to learn it along with its definite article (i.e. the
word meaning ‘the’). In this unit, nouns will therefore be given along with
their definite articles, but there will be no discussion of the articles as such.
Definite and indefinite articles are the subject of Unit 2.
Most nouns in the singular end in -o, -a, or -e.
2 Italian nouns ending in -o are usually masculine:
3 Italian nouns ending in -a are usually feminine:
4 Italian nouns ending in -e can be either masculine or feminine. Unless a
noun ending in -e denotes a person whose gender is defined (e.g. ‘husband’,
‘wife’), there are virtually no rules to determine its gender, which must there-
fore be learned by heart or checked in a dictionary:
l’uomo [m]
il fratello [m]
il pomeriggio [m]
il treno [m]man
brother
afternoon
trainla donna [f]
la sorella [f]
la sera [f]
la bicicletta [f]woman
sister
evening
bicycle