iii. Making things plural
Like a lot of languages, Italian is gendered, meaning words need to change according to who youโre talking to or about. Although English is not as gendered as Italian, we do still use this rule with words such as waiter/waitress and actor/actress.
What we dive into in this post is how this affects nouns, however, thatโs not all it affects in the language. For instance, the word the would also change.
A good way to figure out what gender a word is, is to check the last letter of the word. Most Italian words end in a vowel, and in the rare cases when it doesnโt, the word will most likely be masculine in nature.
Most feminine nouns end in an A if singular, and E if plural. While most masculine nouns end in an O, and an I if plural.
As for singular words ending in an E, it could be either.
Now, you canโt always rely on this method. As I stated, most of the time itโs this way. Itโs a good way to at least guess at what it is, but you wonโt always be correct
โ As I stated before, words have gender. Nouns, Unlike adverbs, do not have to change the last letter according to who youโre talking to or about unless you are showing possession (ie. My car, her shirt, his seat, their house)
words ending in an A are typically feminine in nature. In order to give possession, you must change the last letter of the word to an A, and also change the possessor word (the, my, hers, etc). Regular nouns do not change the letter unless you are showing possession. Descriptor words do need to change.
words ending in an E are sometimes feminine in nature. In order to give possession, you must change the possessor word, but not the last letter unless you make it plural. Regular nouns do not change the letter unless you are showing possession. Descriptor words do need to change.
words ending in -ione will typically be feminine, and fall under the โwords ending in Eโ category.
+ 10 SINGULAR FEMININE WORDS +
1. Bella/Bello (beautiful)
words ending in an O are typically masculine in nature. In order to give possession, you must change the last letter of the word to an O, and also change the possessor word (the, my, hers, etc). Regular nouns do not change the letter unless you are showing possession. Descriptor words do need to change.
words ending in an E are sometimes masculine in nature. In order to give possession, you must change the possessor word, but not the last letter unless you make it plural. Regular nouns do not change the letter unless you are showing possession. Descriptor words do need to change.
words ending in a consonant are borrowed words from other languages and are masculine. The last letter does not need to change.
+ 10 SINGULAR MASCULINE WORDS +
iii. Making things plural
unlike in English, making something plural is not as simple as adding an S or ES to the end of the word. You must change the last letter of the word to another one according to what the original letter was.
to change a word that ends in A to plural, you must drop the A then add an E. If the word ends in CA or GA, you must drop the A and add HE to keep the hard C/G sound. refer to this post to better understand the H in this.
to change a word that ends in O to plural, you must drop the O then add an I. If the word ends in CO or GO, you must drop the O and add HI to keep the hard C/G sound.
to change a word that ends in E to plural, you must drop the E and add an I.
Words ending in a consonant are identical singular and plural
+ SINGULAR WORDS NOW PLURAL +
2. Madri (mothers. Not to be confused with motherโs)
3. Colazioni (breakfasts)
