Lesson 2: Noun gender and number

Part 1: Two genders — masculine and feminine

Italian has only two genders: masculine (maschile) and feminine (femminile). No neuter. (And no, gender has nothing to do with anything being "manly" or "girly" — la sedia, the chair, is feminine; il libro, the book, is masculine. It's a grammar label, not a description.)

The good news: the ending almost always tells you the gender. Compare French, where you really do just have to memorize.

Base rule:

Singular ending	Gender	Example
-o	masculine	libro (book), tavolo (table), gatto (cat)
-a	feminine	casa (house), penna (pen), pizza (pizza)
-e	masc. or fem. — learn with the article	cane (m. dog), chiave (f. key)

Watch out: even very common words can surprise. la mano (hand) ends in -o but is feminine. il problema (problem) ends in -a but is masculine (along with il tema, il sistema, il programma — all from Greek). Italian gender is mostly logical, but it has its potholes.

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Part 2: Forming the plural

The rule is simple, but it's not like English: the ending changes, it isn't just appended. English adds -s ("books"). Italian swaps the vowel.

Singular	→ Plural	Example
-o	-i	libro → libri (books)
-a	-e	casa → case (houses)
-e	-i	cane → cani (dogs), chiave → chiavi (keys)

Key idea: the ending -e in the singular and -i in the plural is not a gender marker. Cane (dog) is masculine, chiave (key) is feminine, and both get -i in the plural. You read gender from the article, not from the -e or -i.

Compare with English

English	Italian
book → books (added -s)	libro → libri (swapped -o for -i)
house → houses (added -s)	casa → case (swapped -a for -e)
table → tables	tavolo → tavoli

Italian replaces the vowel — it doesn't pile on. Don't write libroi — write libri.

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Part 3: The easy irregularities

A handful of patterns to know up front.

1. Words in -co, -go, -ca, -ga — insert h before -i/-e to keep the hard "k/g"

Remember L1? Before e, i the letters c, g go soft. To stop that from happening:

Singular	Plural	Translation
amico	amici	friend → friends (m. — exception! drops the h, becomes soft "chi")
parco	parchi	park → parks (hard "ki")
fungo	funghi	mushroom → mushrooms (hard "gi")
amica	amiche	(female) friend → friends (hard "ke")
banca	banche	bank → banks

Remember it this way: the h is there to protect the sound. Parchi reads "PAR-kee" — without the h it would be "PAR-chee". Amici is the exception that proves the rule: "ah-MEE-chee", soft "ch". That's just how it is — memorize it.

2. Words ending in -io — drop the i before -i

Singular	Plural	Translation
figlio	figli	son → sons
occhio	occhi	eye → eyes
orologio	orologi	clock/watch → clocks

3. Words in -ista — one singular for m. and f., but different plurals

Singular (either gender)	Masc. plural	Fem. plural
turista (m./f. tourist)	turisti	turiste
artista	artisti	artiste

4. Genuinely irregular — learn one by one

Singular	Plural	Translation
l'uomo	gli uomini	man → men
la mano	le mani	hand → hands (ends in -o, but feminine!)
il problema	i problemi	problem → problems (ends in -a, but masculine!)
la moto	le moto	motorbike (invariable — short for motocicletta)
la radio	le radio	radio (also short — invariable)

Traps: la mano on -o but feminine. Il problema on -a but masculine. Most of the Greek-origin words in -ma are masculine (tema, sistema, programma, problema, dramma).

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Part 4: Gender clues when the ending is -e

Words in -e must be learned with their article (introduced in L3). A few reliable hints:

• -ione — almost always feminine: la stazione (station), la lezione (lesson), la nazione (nation). Cognate alert: English -tion ↔ Italian -zione. Free vocabulary.
• -ore — almost always masculine: il dottore (doctor), il professore (teacher), il colore (color).
• Tree names — masculine: il melo (apple tree).
• Fruit names — usually feminine: la mela (apple). The tree/fruit pair is reliable: il pero / la pera (pear tree / pear), il pesco / la pesca (peach tree / peach).

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Part 5: Numbers 20–100

Simple logic: tens word + unit, with the final vowel dropped before uno and otto:

• 20 + 1 = ventuno (not ventiuno)
• 20 + 8 = ventotto (not ventiotto)
• 21 = ventuno, 22 = ventidue, 23 = ventitré (note the accent!), … 28 = ventotto, 29 = ventinove.

#	Word
20	venti
21	ventuno
22	ventidue
23	ventitré
24	ventiquattro
25	venticinque
26	ventisei
27	ventisette
28	ventotto
29	ventinove
30	trenta
40	quaranta
50	cinquanta
60	sessanta
70	settanta
80	ottanta
90	novanta
100	cento

Notice: 23, 33, 43, etc. — always written with an accent: ventitré, trentatré, quarantatré. The stress falls on the last syllable, and Italian marks it.

The pattern continues: 31 = trentuno, 38 = trentotto, 45 = quarantacinque, 67 = sessantasette, 99 = novantanove.

English-speaker bonus: unlike German, Italian puts tens before units, just like English. "Twenty-five" → "venti-cinque". No backwards counting here.

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