Genere e numero

Gender and number
Nouns or nouns in Italian are divided by gender (masculine and feminine) and number (singular and plural).

Regarding people and animals, the distinction is in relation to sex: nouns of male living beings are masculine, while nouns of female living beings are feminine. For the nouns of things (both concrete and abstract) the distinction between maschile or femminile is purely conventional.

We classify Italian nouns by gender and number according to the ending vowel.

Example:
le persone (people) - plural, feminine
gli amici (friends) - plural, masculine
il ragazzo (guy) - singular, masculine
i capelli (hair) - plural (yes, in Italian it is plural!), masculine
la ragazza (girl) - singular, feminine
la fidanzata (girlfriend) - singular, feminine
l'uomo (man) - singular, masculine
il padre (father) - singular, masculine
la donna (woman) - singular, feminine
la madre (mother) - singular, feminine



The following table shows how to classify regular Italian nouns by gender according to the ending vowel of their singular form:
In their plural form, nouns change their ending following the rules below:
EXERCISE
Common MASCULINE NOUNS ending in -e
Common FEMININE NOUNS ending in -e
The masculine plural is also used to designate mixed sets of male and female subjects: as you probably noticed in the dialogue above, amici (friends), can indicate just men but also a mix of men and women.


How do Italians know whether nouns ending in -e are masculine and feminine? Certainly, by using them every day but also because the Italian articles help us. We'll see them very soon.