Intermediate Italian Level 1
Unit 1 - Review #1
Italian Foundations
Before diving into new stuff, it is always wise to make sure we have strong foundations.
In this video lesson we reviewed:
Gender of Nouns & Adjectives
Plurals of Nouns & Adjectives
Exceptions with Plurals
Definite Articles
Indefinite Articles
Sentence Structure
How do you feel about all these topics? Where is confidence when it comes to these aspects on
the Italian grammar?
It is essential that you be honest about this and never become complacent with your knowledge.
It is a fact: we know a lot more than what we remember to use.
And it’s OK!
That is exactly why we need to re-inforce all concepts and check if we can apply them.
Refer back to the original Lessons from Beginner Italian Level 1 and Beginner Italian Level 2 if
you need to go deeper with your review. Contact Support for a great deal on those two courses,
if you don’t have them.
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Intermediate Italian Level 1
Gender of Nouns and Adjectives
- Italian nouns have gender (masculine or feminine)
- Gender is fixed and “randomly” assigned
- Adjectives need to match the gender of the noun they are describing
- Singular masculine words usually end in -O
- Singular feminine words usually end in -A
- Singular Italian words end in -E are harder to guess, as they can be either masculine or
feminine (but still, one or the other)
- These words are clearly masculine: divano, bagno, vino
- These words are clearly feminine: panna, casa, pizza
- These words are hard to guess: elefante (masculine), chiave (feminine), c ane (masculine)
- Similarly to nouns, adjectives can end in -O for masculine or -A for feminine, but some end
in -E, and can be used to describe both genders.
Divani bianco
Casa bianca
Elefante bianco
Chiave bianca
Divano grande
Casa grande
Elefante grande
Chiave grande
- In the above examples, BIANCO changes the ending for masculine and feminine, while
GRANDE does not.
Your Notes
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Intermediate Italian Level 1
Plurals of Nouns and Adjectives
- Plural masculine words usually end in -I
- Plural feminine words usually end in -E
- Singular Italian words ending in -E usually end in -I in the plural (and the gender is hard to
guess)
- These words are masculine: divani, bagni, vini, elefanti, cani
- These words are feminine: panne, case, pizze, chiavi
- elefanti ( masculine), chiavi (feminine), c ani (masculine) are plurals of word ending in -E in
the singular, and therefore confusing
- When in doubt with a word ending in -I, it is safer to assume that it is a masculine plural
- Adjectives have to match the number of the nouns
- Similarly to nouns, plural adjectives can end in -I for masculine or -E for feminine, but
adjectives ending in -E in the singular, usually end in -I in the plural, a
nd can be used to
describe both genders.
Divano bianchi
Case bianche
Elefanti bianchi
Chiavi bianche
Divani grandi
Case grandi
Elefanti grandi
Chiavi grandi
- In the above examples, BIANCO changes the ending for masculine plural to -I and for
feminine plural to -E, while GRANDE only changes its ending to -I for plurals, regardless of
gender (yet it is a masculine or feminine adjective)
Your Notes
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Intermediate Italian Level 1
Exceptions with Plurals
- Foreign words do not change in the plural
- Adjectives describing plural foreign words still need to express gender and number
(gender being harder to tell for foreign words and number being given away from context
and the articles used)
Lo sport > Gli sport
Lo sport americano > Gli sport americani
- Words ending with an accented syllable do not change in the plural
- Adjectives describing these plural words still need to express gender and number
Un caffè corto > Due caffè corti
Una città bella > Due città belle
- Some exotic animals ending in -A in the singular do not change in the plural (and are
usually masculine!)
- Adjectives describing these plural words still need to express gender and number
Un koala piccolo > Due Koala piccoli
Un gorilla simpatico > Due gorilla simpatici
- Some words deriving from Greek ending in -I in the singual do not change in the plural
- These are often the same words that end in -IS in English
- Adjectives describing these plural words still need to express gender and number
Una crisi politica > Due crisi politiche
Un’analisi chimica > Due analisi chimiche
Your Notes
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Intermediate Italian Level 1
Definite Articles
- Yes, Italian has seven ways to say THE
- IL is used for singular masculine words
- LO is used for singular masculine words starting with a strong (double) consonant sound,
like Z, GN, GL, X, Y, S+Consonant, PS…
- L’ is used for singular masculine words starting with a vowel
- I is used for plural masculine words
- GLI is used for the plural of those masculine words that use LO and L in the singular
- The ‘default’ articles for masculine words are IL / I and we are going to use these unless
an exception is present (for which we will use LO, L, and GLI)
- LA is used for singular feminine words
- L’ is used for singular feminine words that start with a vowel
- LE is used for all plural feminine words
- The ‘default’ articles for feminine words are LA / LE and we are going to use these unless
the feminine word is starts with a vowel and is singular (for which we use L’)
Il divano
I divani
La ragazza
Le ragazze
Lo studente
Gli studenti
L’aquilone
Gli aquiloni
L’insalata
Le insalate
- In italian the article is chosen based on the word that follows to improve sound and
simplify pronunciation
- Nouns do not ‘own’ an article
- If we inserted the adjective STRANO in one of its forms between the article and the noun,
we will notice that some articles need to change:
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Intermediate Italian Level 1
Il divano strano Lo strano divano
I divani strani Gli strani divani
La ragazza strana La strana ragazza
Le ragazze strane Le strane ragazze
Lo studente strano Lo strano studente
Gli studenti strani Gli strani studenti
L’aquilone strano Lo strano aquilone
Gli aquiloni strani Gli strani aquiloni
L’insalata strana La strana insalata
Le insalate strane Le strane insalate
Your Notes
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Intermediate Italian Level 1
Indefinite Articles
- In English, A and AN are Indefinite Articles
- UN is used for singular masculine words
- UNO is used for singular masculine words starting with a strong (double) consonant
sound, like Z, GN, GL, X, Y, S+Consonant, PS…
- The ‘default’ indefinite article for masculine words is UN, unless there is need to use UNO
- UNA is used for singular feminine words
- UN’ is used for singular feminine words that start with a vowel
- The ‘default’ indefinite article for feminine words is UNA, unless there is need to use UN’
- UN’ can only be used for feminine words - masculine words that start with a vowel just
use the default UN
Un cappuccino
Una castagna
Uno scandalo
Uno gnomo
Uno zaino
Uno xilofono
Un’anatra
Un’amica
Un amico
Un’isola
Your Notes
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Intermediate Italian Level 1
Sentence Structure
- Like English, Italian is an S V O language, that is, Subject > Verb > Object
- In the specific, an Italian sentence might look like:
Article + Noun + Adjective + Verb + Article + Noun
Il cane nero mangia la mela
- Adverbs are usually placed right after the verb
Il cane nero mangia spesso la mela
- To make a verb negative, we place NON right before the verb (or the pronoun, if the verb
is already preceded by one)
Il cane nero non mangia la mela
- AI, NIENTE, NESSUNO (never, nothing, nobody),
When using negative words such as M
in Italian the verb still needs to be preceded by NON:
Il cane nero non mangia mai la mela
- Overall, Italian has the same structure as English (except when it comes to questions), and
we should not be overly worried
- As long as we apply the main rules of the Italian language (omission of subject pronouns,
abundance of definite articles, positioning of the adjective after the noun etc), we’ll be fine
- Italian is more flexible than English when it comes to where we place blocks on content
Your Notes
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Intermediate Italian Level 1
Your Notes
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