To help you to determine the gender of some nouns ending in -e, here is a
rule: nouns ending in -sione or -zione are feminine:
Sometimes, the gender of a noun ending in -e can be determined by the
gender of the person it refers to: masculine when it refers to a male, feminine
when it refers to a female:
5 Some nouns ending in -a and referring to persons are masculine when they
refer to a male and feminine when they refer to a female:*
- There are some exceptions: e.g. la persona (person) and la guida (tourist
guide) are always feminine, even when they refer to a male, while the feminine
of il poeta (poet) is la poetessa.
6 There are some nouns ending in -a which are masculine and some nouns
ending in -o which are feminine:
Masculine
il padre
il ristorante
il sale
il cognomefather
restaurant
salt
surnameFeminine
la madre
la notte
la luce
la chiavemother
night
light
keyla televisione [f]
la pensione [f]
la produzione [f]
la stazione [f]television
pension
production
stationil/la cantante [m/f]
il/la cliente [m/f]
il/la parente [m/f]
l’inglese [m/f](male/female) singer
(male/female) customer
(male/female) relative
Englishman/Englishwomanil/la collega [m/f]
l’atleta [m/f]
il/la batterista [m/f]
il/la pianista [m/f](male/female) colleague
(male/female) athlete
(male/female) drummer
(male/female) pianistMasculine
il cinema
il papà
il problemacinema
dad
problemFeminine
l’auto
la foto
la manocar
photo
hand