Nouns - genre

Nouns
A noun (il nome / il sostantivo) can be a person, place, object, or idea. Examples of English nouns are boy, Italy, pen, car, and love, etc
In Italian, all nouns have a gender, masculine or feminine. The noun’s gender determines the forms of other words nearby, such as articles and adjectives.
Nouns appear in singular or plural forms.
• Gender (il genere)
• All Italian nouns have a gender.
• Most Italian nouns ending in -o are masculine (e.g. ragazzo, albergo, vino).
• Most Italian nouns ending in -a are feminine (e.g. penna, signora, scuola).
• Nouns ending in -e are in some cases masculine (e.g. amore, sole, signore) and in other cases feminine (e.g. automobile, stazione, carne). There is some
predictability , but in most cases it is difficult to guess the gender of the members of this class of nouns. It is good practice to learn the gender when you learn the
meaning of each new noun ending in -e. Include a gender notation (m. or f.) for these nouns, and test yourself regularly.

Chiave f,s Chiavi f,s

Gelato
m,s Gelati m,p Chitarra
Chitarre
f,s
f,p
Pesci m,p
Pesce m,s
 Nouns
Additional tips:
• Nouns ending in a consonant (e.g. -m, -t, -r) are imports from other languages and are masculine (e.g. film, sport, computer).
• Nouns ending in -zione or -sione are typically feminine (e.g. stazione, decisione, lezione).
• Some common nouns are abbreviations of longer ones (e.g. foto from fotografia). These abbreviated nouns carry the gender of their longer version (hence, la foto
even though foto ends in -o.)
• Many nouns ending in -ma (of Greek derivation) are masculine, despite the -a at the end (e.g. programma, tema, sistema and problema).
Nouns
Plurals (i plurali)
• Singular nouns can be made plural according to predictable rules.
• singolare plurale
• ragazzo (m.) ragazzi
• penna (f.) penne
• dottore (m.) dottori
• automobile (f.) automobili
• As you can see, nouns ending in -o in the singular (generally masculine), end in -i in the plural, and nouns ending in -a in the singular (generally feminine), end in
-e in the plural. Nouns ending in -e in the singular end in -i in the plural regardless of gender.
• Common exceptions:
• Nouns ending in an accented vowel do not change their forms. For example:
• singular plural
• città città
• autorita’ autorita’
• Velocita’ velocita’
 Nouns
• Nouns that end in -ca and -ga insert an -h in the plural, in order to preserve the sound of the singular form. For example:
• singular plural
• banca banche
• targa targhe
• parco parchi
• lago laghi

You will soon come across a few nouns with very irregular plurals, for example:
• singular plural
• uomo (man) uomini (men)