About Nouns

 Italian nouns are either masculine or feminine (this is called their gender). "The" is il or  lo when the word is masculine and la when it is feminine. When a noun begins with a vowel, lo or la is shortened to l'. On this site, the gender of each noun is shown using the abbreviations (f) for feminine (female) and (m) for masculine (male).

 Look out also for these abbreviations: (s) for singular and (pl)  for plural. In the plural, the word for "the" is i or gli for masculine nouns and le for feminine nouns. In Italian, nouns that describe what people do or are (e.g. dancer) often have a masculine and a feminine form.

About Adjectives

 Italian adjectives change their ending depending on whether the noun they are describing is masculine or feminine. Most adjectives end in o in the masculine and a in the feminine. Adjectives ending in e  are for both masculine and feminine (see the Adjective page).

About Verbs

Most Italian verbs have infinitives ending in are, ere, or ire. You can find out how to use verbs on our Verbs page. There is also a list of irregular verbs on our Irregular Verbs page.