Basics 1 · 81f4a215be8972ad015f69914ce72d34
Ciao!Let's Learn Italian!
Did you know that the Italian alphabet has only 21 letters? Usually you won’t see j, k, w, x, or y in Italian words. This makes learning Italian easier by 5 letters!
Gender
In Italian, all nouns are either masculine or feminine, even when they don’t refer to people. Usually, nouns that end in ‑o (like ragazzo) are masculine, and nouns that end in ‑a (like ragazza) are feminine.
un ragazzoa boy
una ragazzaa girl
For masculine nouns use un, and for feminine nouns use una.
Verbs
In English, verbs don’t change their ending much. For example, I run is different from he runs, and we say I am, you are, and she is, but it doesn’t get much more complicated than that. In Italian, though, all verbs change depending on whether it’s I, you, she, etc.
| essere to be |
|
|---|---|
| io I |
sono (I) am |
| tu you |
sei (you) are |
| lui he |
è (he) is |
| lei she |
è (she) is |
Notice that lui and lei always have the same verb form, so we’ll group them together from now on.
And one more thing! In Italian, including words like I, you, he, etc. before a verb is optional.
Sono una donna.
I am a woman.
La, il, or l’?
La and il both mean the. Use la for feminine nouns, and il for masculine.
la melathe apple
il panethe bread
If the noun starts with a vowel, use l’ instead of la or il.
l'acqua
the water
l'uomo
the man
This is a recap to help you remember these words more easily.
| Feminine | Masculine |
|---|---|
| la ragazza | il ragazzo |
| la mela | il pane |
| l'acqua | l'uomo |