Just like adjectives, every single noun in Italian has a gender. This doesn’t just apply to people; it includes inanimate objects (like a chair or a car) and even abstract concepts (like love or time). While giving a "gender" to a table might feel a bit weird at first, don't worry—we’ll dive into that later once you’ve mastered the basics.
To keep things simple, we'll start with nouns where the gender is already clear, like fratello (brother) and sorella (sister). Italian nouns are generally split into two main groups: the first uses different endings for masculine and feminine, while the second ends in -e for both. For now, we are going to focus strictly on that first group.
Let’s look at fratello (brother) and sorella (sister) to see the pattern in action. It’s a very consistent system: -o becomes -i for the guys, and -a becomes -e for the girls!