Casa, gatto, fiore, foto… are these words masculine or feminine? How can you tell? Let’s discover it together!
Masculine or feminine?
In Italian, words are either masculine or feminine. But how can you tell? Try to use your intuition! In your opinion, are the following words masculine or feminine?
BERRETTO 
SCIARPA 
NEVE
Fai un esercizio!
Did you get a good guess on the berretto cap and sciarpa scarf? In Italian, words ending with -o are usually masculine, while those ending with -a are usually feminine.
But what about words that end with -e, like neve snow? Well, those words are the ones you doubt most, because they can be both masculine and feminine! In this case neve feminine.
Masculine and feminine
As we have already mentioned, in Italian there are only two genders, masculine and feminine, and you can usually tell the gender by the ending of the word:
| -o | il libro the book | Masculine |
| -a | la scuola the school | Feminine |
A few sample words with nouns on -o (male) and on -a (female):
| -o Maskulin | -a Feminin | ||
| il gatto the cat | la gatta the cat | ||
| l’amico the (male) friend | l’amica the (female) friend | ||
| il nonno the grandfather | la nonna the grandmother | ||
| il tavolo the table | la pioggia the rain | ||
| l’albero the tree | la regina the queen | ||
| il berretto the cap | la sciarpa the scarf |
Exceptions
There are a few exceptions with -a which are masculine, like il problema (m.) the problem, il turista (m.) the tourist, il poeta (m.) the poet, il papà (m.) dad, father, il papa (m.) the pope.
Some words on -o are masculine, like la foto (f.) the photo, la moto (f.) the motorcycle, l’auto (f.) the car, la radio (f.) the radio. This is because they are abbreviations: la fotografia, la motocicletta, l’automobile, la radiofonia. Another exception is la mano (f.) the hand.
Let’s take a picture!
Words ending with -e
Only with -e you can unfortunately not tell if it is masculine or feminine! Here are a few useful words for you that end with -e:
| Maskulin | Feminin | ||
| il padre the father | la madre the mother | ||
| il fiore the flower | la carne the meat | ||
| il cane the dog | la volpe the fox | ||
| il sole the sun | la tigre the tiger | ||
| il giornale the newspaper | la luce the light | ||
| il latte the milk | la soluzione the solution | ||
| il pane the bread | la pelle the skin | ||
| l’animale the animal | la neve the snow | ||
| l’abete the fir tree | la nave the ship |
There are also some words that end with a consonant (usually foreign words), such as il bar or il film, and they are usually masculine.
Esercizi
Fai un esercizio!
Impara con Kira e Cody
dal calendario 2019
Cody: "Nouns ending with -o are usually masculine"
il ragno spider
il bambino kid, boy
il gatto cat
il gomitolo ball of wool
Kira: "Nouns ending with -a are usually feminine"
la renna reindeer
la sciarpa scarf
la bambina kid, girl
la capra goat
la palla ball
Cody: "Nouns ending with -e are masculine or feminine"
il serpente (m.) snake
il giornale (m.) newspaper
la volpe (f.) fox
la neve (f.) snow
Kira: "Nouns with other endings are masculine or feminine"
Pallino: "I love this movie!"
l'oasi (f.) oasis
il menu (m.) menu
il film (m.) film
But the ball goes under the sofa.
"Oh no! What do we do?"
They are very sad.
"No problem," says the spider.
It takes the ball with its spider web.
"Thanks very much!"
Now Bianca and Pallino are happy again.
Substantive:
la volpe (f.) fox (or vixen)
il gatto (m.) cat
la palla (m.) ball
il divano (m.) sofa
il problema (m.) problem [Exception: Ends with -a, but masculine!]
il ragno (m.) spider
la ragnatela (f.) spider's web
