Italian Articles

If you're trying to learn Italian Articles you will find some useful resources including a course about Definite and Indefinite Articles... to help you with your Italian grammar. Try to concentrate on the lesson and notice the pattern that occurs each time the word changes its place. Also don't forget to check the rest of our other lessons listed on Learn Italian. Enjoy the rest of the lesson!

Italian Articles

Learning the Italian Articles is very important because its structure is used in every day conversation. The more you practice the subject, the closer you get to mastering the Italian language. But first we need to know what the role of Articles is in the structure of the grammar in Italian.

Italian articles are words that combine with a noun to indicate the type of reference being made by the noun. Generally articles specify the grammatical definiteness of the noun. Examples are "the, a, and an".

Unlike English, which has only one definite article “the” for both singular and plural, Italian has 4 different articles, also depending on genre:

 

Italian DEFINITE ARTICLES
	Singular	Plural
Masculine	il / lo *	i /gli *
Feminine	la	le

 

Ex. IL gatto (the cat), I bambini (the children)

      LA casa (the house), LE rose (the roses)

* Notice: the masculine article can vary according to the initial letter of the word; in Italian    

            there’s not a specific rule, but there are just some few words requiring LO/GLI instead   

            of IL/I, for ex.: LO zaino (the rucksack), LO studio (studying), LO stimolo (the   

            stimulus), GLI gnocchi (a type of pasta), GLI avvisi (the announcements), etc.

            [you can check them on the dictionary]

 

Italian INDEFINITE ARTICLES
Masculine	Un /uno
Feminine	Una / un’

 

Ex. UN topo (a mouse), UNO zaino (a rucksack);

à  as for the definite article, there are some few cases of words requiring the indefinite UNO   

     instead of UN (they are more or less the same used for the definite examples).

    UNA maglietta (a t-shirt), UN’ amica (a friend –female person-)

à the full form is used when the feminine word starts with a consonant, while the contracted  

    form is used when the word starts with a vowel.

 

OTHER DETERMINERS:

The English indefinite SOME / ANY is translated with ALCUNI, QUALCHE, DEI, DELLE, DEL, UN PO’ DI, NESSUNO (according to the contexts).

 Here are some examples:

- Some apples: ALCUNE/DELLE mele

- I don’t see any book here: non vedo NESSUN libro qui

- There are some interesting articles on this magazine: ci sono DEGLI articoli interessanti su questa rivista / c’è QUALCHE articolo interessante su questa rivista

 (NOTICE the different use of singular and plural form, according to the choice of the indefinite item)

-  I have some important things to say: ho DELLE cose importanti da dire

- Some guests came yesterday: QUALCHE ospite è venuto ieri (NOTICE the use of singular form with “qualche”)

Here are some more examples:

English Articles	Italian Articles
articles	Articoli
the	il
a	un
one	uno
some	alcuni
few	pochi
the book	il libro
the books	i libri
a book	un libro
one book	un libro
some books	alcuni libri
few books	pochi libri

As you can see from the example above, the structure of the Articles in Italian has a logical pattern. Locate the Articles above and see how it works with the rest of the sentence in Italian.

List of Articles in Italian

Below is a list of vocabulary where you can use the Definite and Indefinite Articles in Italian. Try to practice but also memorizing this table will help you add very useful and important words to your Italian vocabulary.

English Vocabulary	Italian Vocabulary
Food	cibo
almonds	mandorle
bread	pane
breakfast	prima colazione
butter	burro
candy	caramella
cheese	formaggio
chicken	pollo
cumin	cumino
dessert	dolce
dinner	cena
fish	pesce
fruit	frutta
ice cream	gelato
lamb	agnello
lemon	limone
lunch	pranzo
meal	pasto
meat	carne
oven	forno
pepper	pepe
plants	piante
pork	carne di maiale
salad	insalata
salt	sale
sandwich	panino
sausage	salsiccia
soup	soup = minestra, brodo = broth
sugar	zucchero
supper	cena
turkey	tacchino
apple	mela
banana	banana
oranges	arance
peaches	pesche
peanut	arachide
pears	pere
pineapple	ananas
grapes	uva
strawberries	fragole
vegetables	verdure
carrot	carota
corn	mais
cucumber	cetriolo
garlic	aglio
lettuce	lattuga
olives	olive
onions	cipolle
peppers	peperoni
potatoes	patate
pumpkin	zucca
beans	fagioli
tomatoes	pomodori

Definite and Indefinite Articles have a very important role in Italian, therefore they need very special attention. Once you're done with Italian Articles, you might want to check the rest of our Italian lessons here: Learn Italian. Don't forget to bookmark this page.