THE WORD GENDER IN ITALIAN: A SIMPLE GUIDE

Do Italian words have a gender? Yes, they do! All Italian nouns have a gender and they can be masculine or feminine.

But how do you tell the gender of a word, especially if you don’t know it?

This concept of noun gender can be challenging if you’re an English speaker, but you can’t speak Italian correctly if you don’t know the noun gender.

In fact, articles and adjective all need to agree with the gender of the noun they refer to.

So you can imagine that it’s impossible to talk fluently, ignoring this grammar rule!

Anyways, if you’re struggling with the gender of Italian words, it’s your lucky day as I’m here to help 🙂

In this lesson, I’m going to give you a simple guide on how to figure out if a word is masculine or feminine in Italian. 

Sadly there isn’t a specific rule that tells you for sure the gender of a noun, but I hope that these tricks will help you to guess it when you find a new term.

DO ITALIAN NOUNS HAVE A GENDER? 

In some languages such as Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, French, German… names are associated to a specific gender.

In other words, you can classify nouns as masculine, feminine or neutral. 

Knowing the gender of a word is extremely important since all the articles/adjectives associated to that word need to agree with its gender. 

How many genders are there in Italian?

In Italian there are only two genders: masculine and feminine. The neutral doesn’t exist in Italian.

Let’s look at an example to clarify.

In Italian the house (CASA) is feminine, so if you want to describe it, you need to use the articles and adjectives in the feminine form:

La mia casa e’ bella = my house is beautiful
 

“La” is the feminine article and “mia/bella” are adjectives in the feminine form referring to the house (casa). All of them have to get the same gender of the noun.

Personally, the way I approach the gender with new languages is to learn the names always with their article. 

Why is this the best approach?

Because it gives you the chance to put these new terms in a context and not memorize them in isolation.

So instead of making a list of new words with their gender, I think of a simple sentence for each new name that includes articles and adjectives.

This really helps me to remember the gender more easily. Try it and let me know if it works for you too 🙂 

If you want to know more about the Italian articles, you can check out this lesson:

THE ITALIAN ARTICLES: 7 WAYS TO SAY “THE” IN ITALIAN

But speaking of new words … if you’ve never seen that name before, how do you tell if is masculine or feminine? 

Keep reading to learn some tricks to guess the gender of an Italian noun.

WHAT MAKES A WORD MASCULINE OR FEMININE IN ITALIAN?

So what makes a word masculine or feminine in Italian? 

Unfortunately, there’s not a straight answer to this question. We don’t have a specific rule that tells you if a word is masculine or feminine.

However, there are few things that can help you to recognize the gender when you find a new term. 

I’ve put them all together to give you a simple guide on how to figure out the gender of a noun in Italian.

Note that those are only general guidelines and you’ll find exceptions, so sometimes you really have no choice but to check on the dictionary!

Anyway, with these rules in mind, you’ll be likely to guess the word gender without too much effort. 

So let’s dive into it.

5 GENERAL GUIDELINES TO GUESS THE GENDER OF AN ITALIAN WORD

As I mentioned before, the reason why the word gender is challenging is because there are not specific rules that you can follow.

However, the below guidelines will help you as a starting point.

Remember that the more words you know the easier will become to guess the gender without checking the dictionary 🙂  

N. 1 – PEOPLE/PETS

If the noun refer to a person or a pet, it will always have his/her gender.

For example:

“Il PADRE” (the father) is always masculine and “la MADRE” (the mother) is always feminine.

Same for “il FRATELLO” (the brother) and “la SORELLA” (the sister).

For domestic animals, normally the same rule applies:

“Il GATTO” is the male cat and ”la GATTA” is the female, but if you are uncertain on its gender, then you always use the masculine.

Note that this rule usually applies only to pets, and not to wild animals.

In fact, their names can be either masculine or feminine, regardless their gender, for example:  il LUPO (the wolf) is masculine, but the tiger is feminine, la TIGRE.

Check out the lesson to learn some basic terminology around the family:

HOW TO CALL YOUR FAMILY MEMBERS IN ITALIAN 

N. 2 – ARTICLE

If you’re reading something or listening to someone talking, chances are you’ll get the new name along with its article.

In most cases, the article will tell you if that word is masculine or feminine.

Exceptions are when that name starts with a vowel and therefore the article is L’ both in the masculine and in the feminine.

So if a noun is preceded by the (singular) articles IL and LO, it’s definitely masculine.

But LO becomes L’ if followed by a vowel, so you need to keep on eye on these words. In fact, L’ can be also feminine.

In the plural form, things are easier as you only have I and GLI for masculine names.

Look at the following examples.

• IL giorno / I giorni = the day/s
• LO zio / GLI zii = the uncle/s
• L’orso / GLI orsi = the bear/s

Instead, if in front of a name you see the articles LA (singular) or LE (plural), then it’s certainly feminine. However the doubt remain with the article L’, that can also be masculine.

Here you are some examples:

• LA casa / LE case = the house/s)
• L’aquila / LE aquile (the eagle/s)

N. 3 – WORD ENDING

When a noun doesn’t refer to a person/pet and there’s nothing (like the article) to help you out, then look at the way it ends.

In fact, the last letter in a word generally tells you the gender (watch out the exceptions though!).

Note that here we are only talking about the nouns in their singular form, as the plural can follow different rules.

So the following are usually MASCULINE:

1. Nouns ending with O 
   For example “il LETTO” (the bed) and “il TEMPO” (the time), with some exceptions like “la FOTO” (the photo)

Whereas, these are generally FEMININE:

1. Nouns ending with A
   as “l’ACQUA” (the water) or “la PENNA” (the pen), but not “il CINEMA” (the cinema)
   
2. Nouns ending with -TA’ or -TU’
   like for instance “la CITTA’ “(the city), “l’ETA’ “(the age) or “la VIRTU’ ” (virtue/quality)

With nouns ending with -E, instead, it becomes a little bit more challenging, as they can be either masculine or feminine. 

For example: “il MESE” (the month) and “il MARE” (the sea) are masculine.

While the words “la STAGIONE” (the season) and  “l’ESTATE” (the summer) are feminine.

As you can see all these words end with the letter E. 

What can really help here is to grow your vocabulary and learn as many words as possible. Reading could be a good way to do so.

N. 4 – FOREIGN WORDS

Another thing that can help you to guess the gender in Italian is to see if the name comes from a foreign language (in most of the cases from English!).

Then you can be pretty sure that it’s masculine.

Look at the following examples:

• l’HOTEL 
• il COMPUTER
• il MOUSE
• il GARAGE
• lo ZOO

They’re not Italian words and they are all masculine.

However, there’s an exception here as well.

It’s for the word e-mail that in Italian is feminine; with the article it become “l’EMAIL“, where LA looses the A in front of a vowel.

N. 5 – CATEGORIES

The last trick to help you out with the gender is to see if the noun falls in one specific category.  

So, for instance, words that belong to the below groups, are primarily masculine:

1. DAYS OF THE WEEK
   such as “il lunedi'” (Monday), “il martedi'” (Tuesday), …
   The only exception is Sunday (“la domenica”) that is feminine instead. 
   Check out the days of week in this lesson on the Italian Calendar.
2. SEAS/ MOUNTAINS/ RIVERS
   for example “il Mediterraneo” (Mediterranean Sea), “il Vesuvio” (Vesuvio) or “il Danubio” (Danube).
3. LANGUAGES
   like “l’Italiano” (Italian), “lo Spagnolo” (Spanish) or “l’Inglese” (English).
   Note the we use the article in front of the language.
4. CARDINAL POINTS
   which are “il NORD” (North), “il SUD” (South), “l’EST” (East) and “l’OVEST” (West).

On the other hand, you can assume that a noun is feminine, if it’s in one of the following classes: 
 

1. FRUITS 
   such as “la MELA” (apple) or “la FRAGOLA” (strawberry), with few exceptions like “il MIRTILLO” (blueberry) or “il KIWI” (kiwi).
2. CONTINENTS / COUNTRIES/ ISLANDS
   for example “l’EUROPA” (Europe), “l’ITALIA” (Italy) and “la SICILIA (Sicily) but not “il REGNO UNITO” (United Kingdom).

CONCLUSION

That was a lot of information, so let’s recap!

In Italian all nouns have a gender and they can be masculine or feminine.

It’s very important that you know the gender of a word, because all the other terms in a sentence need to agree with it; for examples, the articles, the adjectives, the verbs, …

Although there isn’t a specific rule that tells you if a noun is masculine or feminine, you can use some simple tricks to help you out.

Indeed, you can guess the gender of a name looking at the following things.

1 – PEOPLE/PETS

If the noun refers to a person, then it will take his or her gender.

This rule sometimes applies to pets as well, but not to wild animals.

2 – ARTICLE

The majority of the times, the article can tell you the gender of the word.

We’ve seen that IL, LO are the masculine articles while LA is feminine.

You just need to pay attention though where the noun begins with a vowel as then the article will always be L’.  

3 – WORD ENDING

Often you can guess the gender of a name based on the way it ends.

For example, a word is usually masculine when the last letter is -O, while, in general, it’s feminine when ending in -A, -TA’ or -TU’.

Here you need to be careful with nouns that finish with the letter E, since they can be masculine or feminine without really a rule.

4 – FOREIGN WORDS

If you see a noun that comes from another language that is not Italian (usually English), then it’s most likely to be masculine, for instance “il computer”, “il mouse” or “lo zoo”.

5 – CATEGORIES

When you find a name that belongs to a specific category, you can easily guess its gender.

So, for example, are normally masculine the days of the week, the seas/mountains/rivers, the languages and the cardinal points.

On the other end, usually the fruits and continents/countries/islands are feminine.  

These are some other useful resources that you can check out:

• HOW TO SAY “THIS” & “THAT” IN ITALIAN 
• THE POSSESSIVE ADJECTIVES AND PRONOUNS IN ITALIAN
• THE MOST USED VERB TENSES IN SPOKEN ITALIAN