In this post I’ll continue to explain you some rules about Italian Grammar: Italian nouns can be masculine and feminine, singular and plural.
In Italian Grammar when the noun indicates a person or an animal it is easy to understand the gender because it coincides almost with the real sex
Noun of male people and animal are masculine:
uomo, padre, fratello, amico, professore, operaio, dottore, cane, leone, gallo, cavallo, gatto, lupo
Noun of female people and animal are feminine:
donna, madre, sorella, amica, professoressa, operaia, dottoressa, leonessa, gallina, cavalla, gatta, lupa, mucca
Instead, when the noun indicates a thing, an objet,an action, an idea, a quality can be male or female;in this case the gender is just a grammatical category
However, it is important to know the gender of the noun because in Italian there is a correlation, which is the rule to put all male or all female word together
To understand the gender we can take a look at its ending, but when the ending cannot give a sure reply it may be useful to take a look at the dictionary
| Tabel with Endings | |||
| Ending Noun | Gender | Examples | Exceptions |
| -o | almast always masculine | il libro, il letto, il compagno, lo studio, lo zio, il tavolo, il cielo, il gioco, l’albero, l’occhio | la mano, la radio, l’eco, la moto, la foto, l’auto |
| -a | usually feminine | mamma, la scuola, la maglia, l’acqua, la ragazza, la penna, la pasta, la merenda | il problema, il diploma, il clima, il papa, il profeta, il poeta, il pilota, l’elettricista, l’autista, il pigiama |
| -à | usually feminine | la città, l’onestà, la sincerità, la metà | il papà |
| -e, -è | masculine | il sole, il pane, il dente, il giornale, il caffè | |
| or feminine | la luce, la carne, la pelle, la soluzione | ||
| -i, -ì | masculine | lo sci, il lunedì, il brindisi | |
| or feminine | l’analisi, l’oasi | ||
| -ù | usually feminine | la gioventù, la servitù, la virtù | il caucciù |
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