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gender and plural

GENDER

In Italian, nouns are either masculine or feminine. Most masculine nouns take the article il. This article becomes l’ when the noun begins with a vowel and becomes lo when the noun begins with s+consonant (eg sc, sp, st), or begins gn, pn, ps, x, y or z.

Feminine nouns take la or l’ (when the noun begins with a vowel).

Many masculine nouns end in o; many feminine nouns end in a. Both masculine and feminine nouns can end in e.

PLURAL

Unlike English, where you generally add letters (s or es) to make nouns plural, in Italian you change the final letter.

o > i (il posto > i posti)

a > e (la pizza > le pizze)

e > i (il padre, la madre > i padri, le madri)

Articles change as follows:

masculine:	il > i	l’ > gli	lo > gli
feminine:	la > le	l’ > le

Nouns that are imported into Italian (such as bar, computer, menù, sport) stay the same in the plural (pl inv). They are generally masculine:

il bar > i bar, il computer > i computer, il menù > i menù, lo sport > gli sport.

PLURAL SPELLING CHANGES

Most nouns ending -co, -ca, -go and -ga often require an h inserting in the plural to retain the hard ‘kuh’ and ‘guh’ sounds:

il parco > i parchi, la banca > le banche

il lago > i laghi, la targa > le targhe

Where spelling changes occur in the plural we have included the plural ending.