2nd Lesson: Female/Male Articles

Italian is a very difficult language, I know it ç___ç We have thousand of form for thousand of words xDDD If you don't understand everything at all at first strike, it's understandable =D

As said in the other topic, Italian Language has some articles for female words and others for male words. The same thing happens with plural/singular words.

The first article is the determinative article (english: the), the second one is the undeterminative article (english: a/an).

SINGULAR
Female
La
Una

Male
Il, Lo
Un, Uno

PLURAL
Female
Le
Delle

Male
Gli, I
Degli

Few notes:
1. The female singular undeterminative article "una" loses the final "a" when it preceeds a female word starting with a vowel;
2. The male determinative articles, both singular and plural, have two forms. The first ones are used when they preceed a male word starting with consonant. The second ones when they preceed a word starting with vowel, but it loses the final vowel (lo orgoglio becomes l'orgoglio = the pride).
3. The female determinative article "la" loses its final vowel when it preceeds a word starting with vowel (la alba becomes l'alba = the dawn).

There is a rule which you you forgot to say in the note 1:
we must use the apostrophe in only female undeterminative article (Ex: un'auto = a car).
And also:
if the determinative articles la, lo preceeds a word starting with a vowel we must replacing the vowel with an apostrophe (Ex: l'aurora = the dawn; l'orgoglio = the pride).
Rarely the apostrophe is used also with gli.
You're right italian is very difficult

P.s. this subject is too hard..

Oh, you're right xD Thanks for your correction, I'm not in the habit of teach my own mother tounge, sorry ><

Right, it's confusing. @___@
It's never easy to teach your mother tongue because you learn it naturally and in different way a person learn a foreign language. I will be confused of what to teach if you ask me to teach you Indonesian. It's understandable, so it's okay. ;)

So, um, what if you give us some kind of exercise? To see if we really understand the problem...?

At this point I think it's too early to give you some exercise... firts you have to learn a bit of lexicon. In fact, right now, none of you is able to understand if a word is famale, male, singular or plural...

Maruko, what about this idea?
We can write some words with the article and it can be a way to see if this word is male or female, singolar or plural.

Yeah ok, let's do this way! ^^

It is very easy to me : D
My language have it to.

hahaha,take that English speaker...That is for confusing people with phases like "The mayor of that city".... is it a woman?a man?

Anyway.Gez,I think that I will end learning the basic of Italian 8D
(Also,my country have at least on Soap Opera about Italy in a year,so I get some words while my mother is watching it,but most of them are unfriendly words D: )

Here we go! Try and put the articles on these words... humm... don't worry if you don't know what to put, and don't worry if you put it wrong, it's absolutely natural =D Oh... put both determinative and undeterminative article, please ^^ I'll put for you the english translation along with the italian word, but this is only for the first times, once you'll learn more lexicon I'll give you only the Italian words!

Casa (home)
Città (city)
Sindaco (mayor)
Mano (hand)
Forum (forum)
Pagina (page)
Cantante (singer)
Voce (voice)
Canzone (song)
Libro (book)

When I learned German a year ago, the words are divided into female and male words as well... But I've forgotten all of them, haha~

Okay, here I go~

1. La/Una casa
2. Il/Un città
3. Il/Un sindaco
4. La/Una mano
5. Il/Un forum
6. Il/Un pagina
7. La/Una cantante
8. Il/Un voce
9. La/Una canzone
10. Il/Un libro

It seems like all the words are singular, but I could be wrong, haha~

Let's wait for other users, then I'll post the right answers! *A*

Sry it is I'm a bit late :P

La/Una Casa
La/Una Città
il/Un Sindaco
La/Una Mano
il/un Forum
La/una Pagina
il/un Cantante
la/una Voce
la/una Canzone
il/un Libro

I used the default male/female word of my language,I don't know if some of them change in Italian ...

Anyway,there is something that I want to ask,about the word Cantante,it is the same for both male/female singer,right? It would be corret if we use la/una cantante?The question is the same for Sindaco too

Cantante is both female and male ^^

Sindaco is a male word, and It actually exist the female word "Sindachessa", however it isn't very used. Thus, we use sindaco both for female and male people ^^

Ahh, I see.
Let's wait for some more entries, if anybody else is interested, then we'll hear the explanation!

Anyone? XD
Well.... Artesox made it all right! Good job!
These are the right answers~

La/Una Casa
La/Una Città
il/Un Sindaco
La/Una Mano
il/un Forum
La/una Pagina
il/un Cantante
la/una Voce
la/una Canzone
il/un Libro

Maruko wrote:Anyone? XD
Well.... Artesox made it all right! Good job!
These are the right answers~

La/Una Casa
La/Una Città
il/Un Sindaco
La/Una Mano
il/un Forum
La/una Pagina
il/un Cantante
la/una Voce
la/una Canzone
il/un Libro

Finally some questions that I answer correctly XD

Four mistakes on my part~ >__<

Anyway, is there any way for us to recognize the attribute of a noun, male or female? Or is it something we should remember by ourselves, similar to German?

Some words are "false friends", maybe they seem male and they're actually female, and vice versa.

However a way to recognize them exists!

Male words almost always end with "o", and female with "a" (Singular)
Male words almost always end with "i", and female with "e" (Pular)

However as I said, there are some exceptions.
Starting from the next lesson, I will always post some words for you lexicon, and you have to memorize them.

I see. Thank you for explaining!
Yay, I wonder what the next lesson will be about, hehe~

Thanks for the awesome lesson! Now I can at least distinguish male and female words in Italian (at least the basic way)! =)

Buon lavoro Maruko so nice you are teaching everyone ^_^