Introduction to Nouns
Italian nouns almost always end in a vowel. Those that don't are usually words borrowed from other languages. Generally speaking, nouns that end in –o are masculine, and words that end in –a are feminine. Nouns ending in –e can be either masculine or feminine. The gender of these nouns must be learned.
Singular Nouns
libro (masculine) |
LEE-broh |
casa (feminine) |
KAH-zah |
madre (feminine) |
MAH-dray |
padre (masculine) |
PAH-dray |
ESSENTIAL
When learning a foreign language, you will learn convenient grammatical rules to help you along. It is important to be open-minded. For every rule, there's bound to be an exception. The rules presented here are very basic — you will notice exceptions to these rules throughout the book.
