
Premio Strega: Italy’s most prestigious literary award
The Premio Strega is Italy’s most prestigious and sought-after literary award.
In Italian there are only two genders, masculine and feminine, and three nouns classes: O, A and E nouns, like gatto, casa and cane. Learn the Italian masculine and feminine, the three Italian noun classes and some exceptions like papa and foto.
The noun classes O and A are pretty straightforward: O nouns are masculine, like il libro or il gatto, A nouns are feminine, like la scuola or la casa.
O | il libro | book | masculine |
A | la scuola | school | feminine |
Here you can find some sample words for masculine and feminine words ending with O and A:
O – MASCULINE | A – FEMININE | ||
il gatto | cat | la luna | moon |
il topo | mouse | la stella | star |
il ragazzo | boy | la ragazza | girl |
il nonno | grandfather | la nonna | grandmother |
il tavolo | table | la sedia | chair |
l’albero | tree | la scuola | school |
il bosco | forest | la borsa | bag |
il pomeriggio | afternoon | la sera | evening |
il vicino | neighbor (man) | la vicina | neighbor (woman) |
If there is a rule, there are also exceptions… In fact there are a few A nouns that are masculine, like:
A dad and the pope are two very different people, so it’s important to distinguish them properly when speaking. Listen to the difference:
[mp3j title=”” track=”https://ekorre.me/wp-content/uploads/papa1.m4a”] | papà dad |
[mp3j title=”” track=”https://ekorre.me/wp-content/uploads/papa.m4a”] | papa pope |
There are also O nouns that are feminine, like:
Except for the first one, the others are abbreviations of words actually ending with A: la fotografia, la motocicletta, l’automobile, la radiofonia.
Besides O and A nouns, there are another noun class in Italian, that is the class of nouns ending with E. Unfortunately in this case you cannot tell if it is masculine or feminine just by looking at it! So you have to learn it by heart. In the following table you can find some useful words that end with E:
MASCULINE | FEMININE | ||
il padre | father | la madre | mother |
il fiore | flower | la volpe | fox |
il cane | dog | la carne | meat |
il pesce | fish | la notte | night |
il sole | sun | la tigre | tiger |
il giornale | newspaper | la luce | light |
il latte | milk | la soluzione | solution |
il pane | bread | la pelle | skin |
l’animale | animal | la neve | snow |
il bicchiere | glass | la nave | ship |
There are also some words that end with a consonant (usually foreign words), like il bar or il film, and they are usually masculine.
Grammar: the definite article in Italian here
Vocabulary: Expressions with Essere and Avere here
Reading: Read a story in Italian here
Your online bookstore specialized in learning Italian.
The Premio Strega is Italy’s most prestigious and sought-after literary award.
La capretta Lilli voleva aiutare, ma cosa poteva fare? – con PASSATO PROSSIMO E IMPERFETTO
A simple quiz in Italian about Dante and the Divine Comedy
Summary of The Divine Comedy with significant quotes
Un breve racconto per esercitarsi con il congiuntivo • con ESERCIZI
4 thoughts on “Masculine and feminine”
For some reason there are no such problemi in French. I suspect the Italians introduced this to serve the French right for invading Italy so often!
I won’t learning italy language please help me
il _o la a
Nouns end with E
I got a very good idea on Italian language now