THE ITALIAN ARTICLES: 7 WAYS TO SAY “THE” IN ITALIAN
Today’s lesson is about the definite articles in Italian. You’ll learn 7 different ways to say the English article “the” and when to use the right one.
HOW DO YOU SAY “THE” IN ITALIAN?
Things can get a bit complicated if you want to say the article “the” in Italian.
Why?
Because there are 7 different ways to say the English word “the”. In fact, the article can vary depending on many things, like for example if the noun is masculine or feminine, singular or plural, if the word begins with a vowel or a consonant, etc..
Anyway, today I’m here to bring some clarity around the article “the” in Italian.
The easiest way to learn the Italian articles is splitting them by their gender.
So we’ll start with the ones we use in front of the masculine nouns that are more complex. After them, we’ll look at the feminine ones which are pretty straight forward.
By the way, if you don’t know yet what’s the word gender in Italian, I recommend you to check the following lesson first:
A SIMPLE GUIDE TO GUESS THE WORD GENDER IN ITALIAN
THE ITALIAN ARTICLES: MASCULINE
As a general rule, when you find a masculine word you have two ways to say “the” on the singular form: IL or LO.
But how do you know which one to choose?
Just look at the first letter of that word and it will tell you the correct article to put in front of it.
Let’s look at this rule a bit more in detail.
SINGULAR MASCULINE ARTICLES (IN ITALIAN)
We’ve already seen that when a word is masculine, you need to use one of the masculine articles IL or LO.
So which one should you pick?
The easiest way to know the right article is to look at the first letter. In other words, you need to see if that word starts with a vowel or a consonant.
If the noun starts with a vowel, it will always get the article LO, but it will lose the “O” to get an apostrophe in its place. So it becomes L’.
In very simple terms, every time you see a masculine noun that begins with a vowel, its article is L’.
An example is the Italian word for the year, ANNO; since it’s masculine and begins with a vowel, its article is L’: L’ANNO.
Okay that was easy; but what if the first letter is a consonant?
A masculine noun starting with a consonant will generally get the article IL.
However there are some cases where it gets the article LO and it’s when the word begins with one of the following letters:
- S + consonant
- GN
- Z
- Y
- PS
- PN
The good news is that there are not many Italian words starting with the letters GN, Z, Y, PS or PN.
So basically you mainly need to focus on the first category; this includes the nouns beginning with an S followed by a consonant.
EXAMPLES: MASCULINE ARTICLES IN ITALIAN
Let’s see some examples of masculine words and their articles.
The below nouns will have the article IL because their first letter is a consonant:
- IL CANE (the dog)
- IL LETTO (the bed)
- IL LIBRO (the book)
These other words, instead, will get the article LO since they start with one of the following: S+consonant, GN, Z, Y, PS or PN.
- LO SPORT (the sport)
- LO GNOCCO (type of Italian pasta made with flours and potatoes)
- LO ZIO (the uncle)
- LO YOGURT (the yogurt)
- LO PSICOLOGO (the psychologist)
- LO PNEUMATICO (the tyre)
Good job! You’ve learnt the Italian articles when a word is masculine on the singular form.
But what happens on the plural? Keep reading to find it out!
PLURAL MASCULINE ARTICLES (IN ITALIAN)
Now that you know the Italian articles on the singular form, let’s see what happens when you speak at the plural.
It’s very simple and there are no exceptions: on the plural form, IL becomes I and LO/L’ become GLI.
So let’s look at the previous examples and see how these words change on the plural.
- IL CANE >> I CANI
- IL LETTO >> I LETTI
- IL LIBRO >> I LIBRI
- L’ANNO >> GLI ANNI
- LO SPORT >> GLI SPORT
- LO GNOCCO >> GLI GNOCCHI
- LO ZIO >> GLI ZII
- LO YOGURT >> GLI YOGURT
- LO PSICOLOGO >> GLI PSICOLOGI
- LO PNEUMATICO >> GLI PNEUMATICI
Note that here we’re not looking at the plural form of the nouns, because we’ll cover them in a separate lesson.
So we’ve done the hard part! Now you’ll see that the feminine article are very simple.
ITALIAN ARTICLES: FEMININE
The Italian articles for feminine nouns are very straight forward. It’s very simple to remember which one to use.
Let’s start with the singular form and then we’ll look at the plural (which even easier!).
SINGULAR FORM OF THE FEMININE ARTICLES (IN ITALIAN)
To see what’s the correct article, we’ll use the same rule that we’ve seen before: look at the initial letter of the word.
So if the noun start with a consonant, you need to use the article LA.
On the contrary, if the first letter is a vowel, the article becomes L’. And that’s because it looses the A in front of a vowel.
So let’s see some examples. The following words will have the article LA because they all start with a consonant:
- LA SEDIA (the chair)
- LA PENNA (the pen)
- LA MELA (the apple)
On the other hand, the below nouns will get the article L’ as they begin with a vowel:
- L’AQUILA (the eagle)
- L’INSALATA (the salad)
- L’ORA (the time)
PLURAL FORM OF THE FEMININE ARTICLES (IN ITALIAN)
As I’ve mentioned already, the plural form of the feminine articles is even easier! In fact, both LA and L’ on the plural become LE (also if the noun begins with a vowel).
Let’s see how the above words become on the plural:
- LA SEDIA >> LE SEDIE
- LA PENNA >> LE PENNE
- LA MELA >> LE MELE
- L’AQUILA >> LE AQUILE
- L’INSALATA >> LE INSALATE
- L’ORA >> LE ORE
LET’S RECAP …
So what did you learn today?
Let’s summarize the key things that you should take away from this lesson.
First of all, the Italian articles are a bit more complex than the English ones. In fact, there are 7 different ways to say the English word “the” in Italian.
I’ve listed them below along with when to use them.
1. LO
It’s the masculine article on the singular form that you use when the word begins with one of the following letters:
- S + consonant
- GN
- Z
- Y
- PS
- PN
2. IL
This is the masculine article on the singular form that you use when a word starts with a consonant.
3. GLI
It’s the plural for the masculine article LO/L’ (LO looses the “O” when it’s in front of a vowel).
4. I
This is the plural form of the masculine article IL.
5. L’
This article is always used when a word begins with a vowel regardless of its gender.
In theory, it’s not a different article: it’s simply LO or LA that have lost the O/A and got an apostrophe in its place.
6. LA
It’s the feminine article on the singular form for all nouns that start with a consonant.
7. LE
This is the plural of LA/L’ when a word is feminine.
And this is all! If you have any questions, go to the video and leave it there in the comment section!
To keep learning, check out also the indefinite articles: