Language/Italian/Grammar/Articles
WHAT'S AN ARTICLE
If you come from a language which does not use articles, these grammar elements could be quite difficult to understand.
An article is a word that marks a noun, giving the listener or the reader an important information about how specific or known this noun is, or, on the other hand, how general or unknown it is.
In fact, there are two main kinds of them: the definite articles, usually used to mark specific and known things, and the indefinite articles, usually used to mark general and unknown things. A third kind of articles is also used to mark a part or a certain amount of a thing, that is to say the partitive articles.
Articles are a variable part of the sentence and must be inflected according to gender and number. They are usually put immediately before the noun: sometimes (not so often really), an adjective or a very short little description can stand between the article and its noun.
However, not every noun should always be marked with an article: sometimes it must not be used.
Let us see how articles work in Italian.
DEFINITE ARTICLES
Definite articles are called "Articoli determinativi" in Italian and are the most variable ones. They come from Latin demonstrative adjectives like "those" or "that" and have the purpose to mark specific and well known things. In fact a noun is usually preceded by a definite article:
- when we mean a precise speciment of a concept/noun
- when we mean something we've already desbribed before
- when the thing we are talking about is already well known by the listener
- when the listener or the reader is already able to visualize in his or her head the precise thing we are talking about
For example: if I say "MELA" (meaning "apple") any of us will get a picture of an apple on its mind: but what is it like? Big or small? Green or red? Can I give a context to this apple in some way? I will never be sure.
Saying "LA MELA" (where "LA" is an article and means "THE") means giving "a context" to "apple" which has to be obvious to the listener or the reader: in this case we have a precise image of "the" apple we are talking about, or we know the context in which this "apple" is considered. One of the most important role of a definite article is to bring the listener or the reader to think of a specific and contextualized concept, and not "one of the many possible specifiment of that concept".
You could almost imagine the definite articles to stand in place of a sentence like "the well known ..." or "the already mentioned..." or even "the one we've already talked about..." etc.
Definite articles are also used to mark the gender of a word and should always be used when learning a new one, not to forget its gender. In fact there are two genders for nouns in Italian and the same two genders for articles: a masculine noun needs a masculine article and a feminine noun needs a feminine article.
Plus, articles also mark the number of a noun, singular or plural: a singular noun needs a singular article, a plural noun needs a plural article.
So, if we could put all this information inside a table it would look like this:
| DEFINITE ARTICLES | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| NUMBER | |||
| Singular | Plural | ||
| GENDER | Masculine | IL, LO | I, GLI |
| Feminine | LA | LE | |
So, masculine singular nouns get two masculine singular articles: "IL" or "LO"; masculine plural nouns get the plural masculine "I" or "GLI". Feminine singular nouns need the feminine article "LA", while feminine plural nouns need the feminine plural "LE".
As you can see, masculine nouns are a bit trickier than the feminine ones: while for the latter we just use one article per number, mascluine nouns can use two of them. What article should be used then?
MASCULINE ARTICLES
First of all it is important to remember that the Italian language does not have a neuter gender and that IL or LO and I or GLI are 100% masculine.
In order to choose the correct masculine article, we should start analyzing the sound the following word begins with. In fact certain sounds cannot stay with article IL and some others cannot stay with article LO.
Plus, notice I wrote "word" and not "noun": in fact, as an article usually stays right before its noun, we could think that a certain noun always requires the same article. However, if I put an adjective between the article and the noun (and in same cases it is correct to do that) I could find myself with a different sound right after the article, which could need to change in order to respect the rule of the sound I mentioned before.
Let us start from LO:
LO must be used before:
- S + Consonant, like before sounds /sk/, /sp/, /st/, /sf/, /zg/, /zb/, /zd/, /sv/, /zm/, /zn/, /zl/, /zr/
- S + C when they create sound /ʃ/
- Z, whether it is pronounced /ts/ or /dz/
- GN /ɲ/
- P + Consonant like in /pt/, /pn/, /ps/: these case are very rare in Italian and come mostly from Greek
- Words beginning with X, pronounced like /ks/ (very rare in Italian)
- Words beginning with J, I or Y pronounced as a half vowel /j/ (like "Yesterday")
- Words beginning with a vowel: in which case LO turns into L' (L + apostrophe)
Let us make a few examples:
- LO SCOIATTOLO --> the squirrel (because we have /sk/)
- LO SQUALO --> the shark (because we have /sk/)
- LO SPORCO --> the dirt (because we have /sp/)
- LO SCIENZIATO --> the scientist (because we have /ʃ/)
- LO ZIO --> the uncle (because we have /ts/)
- LO ZUCCHERO --> the sugar (because we have /ts/)
- LO ZAINO --> the backpack /rucksack (because we have /dz/)
- LO GNOMO --> the gnome (because we have /ɲ/)
- LO PSICOLOGO --> the psychologist (because we have /ps/)
- LO PNEUMATICO --> the tire (because we have /pn/)
- LO IATO --> the hiatus (because we have /j/)
- LO YOGURT --> the yogurt (because we have /j/)
- LO XILOFONO --> the xylophone (because we have /ks/)
- L'ORSO --> the bear (because we have /o/)
- L'ALBERO --> the tree (because we have /a/)
- L'IDOLO --> the idol (because we have /i/)
- L'AIUTO --> the aid / help (because we have /a/)
In any other case, the correct article is IL:
- IL CANE --> the dog (because we have (ka/)
- IL GATTO --> the cat (because we have /ga/)
- IL PROBLEMA --> the problem (because we have /pr/)
- IL PORTONE --> the (big) door (because we have /po/)
- IL TUONO --> the thunder (because we have (twɔ/)
- IL BRACCIO --> the arm (because we have /br/)
- IL SUONO --> the sound (because we have /swɔ/)
- IL SILENZIO --> the silence (because we have /si/)
etc.
In order to better explain how the article isn't strictly connected to the noun, let me show you the following example:
IL CASO --> the case:
Since the word doesn't need the LO article, the right one is IL for exclusion. This noun is used inside the title of a famous book by Robert Louis Stevenson "The strange case of doctor Jekyll and Mister Hyde". The Italian translation of this title is literal: "LO strano caso del dottor Jekyll e Mister Hyde". Even if saying "IL CASO" is correct since after the article we find the sound /ka/, once we put another word between article and noun we need to riconsider things: STRANO (meaning "strange") begins with /st/ and befor S + consonant we need to use article LO. Thus we say IL CASO (the case), but LO STRANO CASO (the strange case).
So don't make the mistake of thinking that one article is "more masculine" than the other, or even that one article is neuter and the other is masculine.
Letter H represents a special case. Since almost no word beginns with an H in Italian (except for some conjugations of the verb "to have" which is pointless to mark with an article), the words that have an H as first letter are usually loan words. Even if in their origin language the H is pronounced, in Italian they are considered as words beginning with the following letter, which usually is a vowel. Let us see these examples:
- HOBBY /'ob:i/
- HOTEL /o'tɛl/
- HORROR /'or:or/
- HABITAT /'abitat/
- HABITUÉ /abitu'e/
- HARAKIRI /ara'kiri/
- HOST /'ɔst/
- HOTSPOT /ɔtspɔt/
All these words are now part of the Italian language but they are all mispronounced according to the Italian phonetics. It is highly probable that foreign words get into the Italian language keeping the original gender, but they get the masculine gender if the origin language consider them as neuter or genderless, espacially if they come from English (and these examples are all masculine in fact),. If we needed to give an article to these words it would be L' (L + apostrophe), as if they all began with a vowel.
L'HOBBY, L'HOTEL, L'HORROR, L'HOST etc.
There is an exception, though, that happened relatively recently: the title of th movie "The Hobbit" by Peter Jackson was traslated with "LO HOBBIT". More and more people are making the effort of pronouncing the H in foreign words and are realising that is quite impossible to pronounce /lh/ at the beginning of a word, so they kept the "O" of LO to pronounce /lo'hɔb:it/. This is just an exception for now, though: the rules say you should us L' (apostrophe) before words starting with H + vowel.
For the plural masculine things couldn't be easier: in the place of every IL stands the plural "I", and in the place of any LO or L' (apostrophe) stands the plural "GLI". For example:
IL CANE --> I CANI (dog, dogs)
IL SUONO --> I SUONI (sound, sounds)
IL PROBLEMA --> I PROBLEMI (problem, problems)
LO ZAINO --> GLI ZAINI (backpack, backpacks)
LO SQUALO --> GLI SQUALI (shark, sharks)
L'HOBBY --> GLI HOBBY (hobby, hobbies)
etc.
The article IL always becomes I and the article LO (L') always becomes GLI.
Exceptions to this rule are very few. Some Italian words (called "parole promiscue"), due to their latin origin, change gender in plural form, passing from IL or LO (L') to LE. Remember that in this case the gender of the entire word change, so it could never keep a masculine plural article
L'UOVO --> LE UOVA ("the egg" is masculine in italian, but "the eggs" is feminine, due to its latin origin)
IL BRACCIO --> LE BRACCIA ("the arm" is masculine in italian, while "the arms" when considered as "human arms", and not those of a machine, are feminine, always due to its latin origin)
There is one noun that is highly irregular and behaves in a special way:
IL DIO --> GLI DEI (and not "i dei"; the god, the gods). The story of this word is as follow: DIO (meaning "god" was always preceded by article "IL" which was slowly incorporated by the noun, which became "IDDIO /id'dio/; the plural (irregular) form "DEI" (gods) thus became "IDDEI", which was preceded (following the phonetic rules above) by article "GLI"; GLI IDDEI then changed to GLI DEI due to the apheresis phomenon. Nowadays, due to this, we have this only exception).
FEMININE ARTICLES
Feminine articles are easier.
Once you know a word is feminine you should just use article "LA", which becomes L' (apostrophe) in front of words beginning with a vowel.
LA CASA (the house, home)
LA SPALLA (the shoulder)
LA SCIENZIATA (the female scientist)
LA ZIA (the aunt)
L'ONDA (the wave)
L'IDEA (the idea)
L'ALA (the wing)
L'ELICA (the propeller, rotor, blade of helicopter)
As you may notice, both LO and LA become L' (apostrophe) in front of words beginning with a vowel. When you encounter a new word preceded by L' be sure to check for the gender of that word.
For every singular LA we use the plural LE
LE CASE
LE SPALLE
LE SCIENZIATE
LE ZIE
LE ONDE
LE IDEE
LE ALI
LE ELICHE
Notice that LE always stays LE (it never gets the apostrophe) even in front of words beginning with another E): LE ELICHE is pronounced /le'ɛlike/
INDEFINITE ARTICLES
Indefinite articles are the opposite of the definite articles: they mark a noun that is not well known to the reader or the listener and that is not contextualized. The perfect translation of these articles is "a, an, one". Let us use the same example used for the definite articles:
MELA (apple) can be preceded by the definite article LA (since "mela" is feminine in italian); saying LA MELA gives us the idea of a specific apple that we can picture in our head, or a contextualized apple that we can describe in some way; as I said we could replace "LA" with a sentence like "the well known", "the already mentioned", etc.
Let us use the indefinite article though; LA changes to UNA: UNA MELA (where "UNA" means "an").
If I say UNA MELA I mean "one of the many", "one at random", "it doesn matter which". The indefinite articles tell us not to focus on a specific sample of the concept we are talking about; the listener cannot describe the concept properly and cannot contextualize it, as he or she needs to recive more information from the speaker.
In Italian indefinite articles can be only singular and refers only to one sample of the concept we are talking about: so while we can turn a definite IL, LO or LA into an indefinite article, we cannot turn I, GLI, LE into one of them; for doing this we need the partitive articles which we'll see later.
For now let's learn the indefinite ones:
| INDEFINITE ARTICLES | ||
|---|---|---|
| GENDER | Masculine | UN, UNO |
| Feminine | UNA | |
Once again we can see how the masculine gender is a bit more problematic than the feminine one. Masculine nouns can be preceded by two articles, while feminine nouns only by one. But don't worry: the rule you have to follow is always the same as before! UN is the indefinite "brother" of IL, while UNO is the indefinite "brother" of LO
UNA is the indefinite "sister" of LA. So:
IL --> UN
IL CANE, UN CANE (the dog, a dog; the following nouns behave in the same way)
IL PORTONE, UN PORTONE
IL PROBLEMA, UN PROBLEMA
LO --> UNO
LO SCOIATTOLO, UNO SCOIATTOLO
LO ZIO, UNO ZIO
LO GNOMO, UNO GNOMO
LA --> UNA
LA CASA, UNA CASA
LA ZIA, UNA ZIA
LA SPALLA, UNA SPALLA
ATTENTION: remember how both LO and LA become L' (apostrophe) in front of words beginning with a vowel? As for the indefinite articles, only UNA becomes UN' (apostrophe) in front of words beginning with a vowel, while UNO becomes UN (without the apostrophe, since UN and UN' would be pronounced in the exact same way). So:
L'ALBERO, UN ALBERO (no apostrophe)
L'ORSO, UN ORSO (no apostrophe)
L'IDOLO, UN IDOLO (no apostrophe)
L'IDEA, UN'IDEA (with apostrophe)
L'ALA, UN'ALA (with apostrophe)
L'ELICA, UN'ELICA (with apostrophe)
NOTE: Italians usually forget to write the apostrophe for the feminine UN', but it is quite useful for guessing the gender of a word.
PARTITIVE ARTICLES
Partitive articles are used to show a general and not well specified quantity of a concept, that cannot be contextualised properly by the listener or the reader. These articles are formed with the help of the preposition DI + a definite article, which will be chosen always according to the rules I explained before. However the combination of DI + a definite article gives birth to a new word.
We have:
DI + IL --> DEL
DI + LO --> DELLO (DELL' in front of words beginning with a vowel)
D + LA --> DELLA (DELL' in front of words beginning with a vowel)
DI + I --> DEI
DI + GLI --> DEGLI
DI + LE --> DELLE
Partitive articles are used for both countable and uncountable nouns. For uncountable nouns we use the singular versions DEL, DELLO, DELLA, while for countable nouns we use the plural forms DEI, DEGLI , DELLE. In both cases the best translation for a partitive article is "some":
DEL TEMPO (since we say "IL TEMPO", we use DI + IL = DEL): some time
DELL'ACQUA: some water
DELLO SPORCO: some dirt
DELLE MELE: some apples
DELLE COSE: some things
DEGLI ORSI: some bears
DEI CANI: some dogs
From a certain point of view, plural partitive articles can be considered as the plural form of an indefinite article: in fact the English "a, an" could be replaced with "one" and UN, UNO, UNA, actually mean "one" too! While "some" usually stands in place of "more than one", like the plural form of "a, an".
I ate an apple / I ate some apples --> Ho mangiato una mela / ho mangiato delle mele
CHOSING THE RIGHT KIND OF ARTICLE
Even learning the theory sometimes is not enough and even if your mother language has articles, they are used differently in any language.
Using articles correctly in Italian is one of the most difficult thing to do. Just look at these few "rules":
POSSESSIVE ADJECTIVES
Italian uses definite articles in front of possessive adjectives unlike English, Spanish or French, but like Portuguese:
IL MIO CANE --> my dog
LE MIE AMICHE --> my female friends
However we don't use them when we talk about relatives:
MIO ZIO --> my uncle
MIA SORELLA --> my sister
but only when singular, because when they are plural we need to use the article:
MIO ZIO / I MIEI ZII --> my uncle / my uncles
MIA SORELLA / LE MIE SORELLE --> my sister /my sisters
However, using the article even with singular relatives is possibile, but it gives a deep feeling of attachment, almost childish love
MIA MAMMA / LA MIA MAMMA --> my mum / my dear mum, my mummy
It maybe strange to hear for some of you, but we can also replace the definite articles with an indefinite or partitive articles meaning "a/some [s.t, or s.o.] of mine":
UN MIO COLLEGA --> a collegue of mine
UNA MIA PAURA --> a fear of mine
DELLE MIE SCARPE --> some shoes of mine
NATIONS AND CITIES
We use articles before every Nation with just a few exception
L'ITALIA --> Italy
LA FRANCIA --> France
LA TURCHIA --> Turky (Turkey)
However this is true when the Nation is subjects or complement not introduced by preposition IN: in this case articles must not be used:
IN ITALIA --> in Italy
IN FRANCIA --> in France
AMO L'ITALIA --> I love Italy
but
VIVO IN ITALIA --> I live in Italy.
However, some Nations are considered as plural nouns (like "the United States" or "the Philipines"): in these cases the article must always be used:
GLI STATI UNITI --> the United States
NEGLI STATI UNITI --> in the United States (NEGLI = IN + GLI)
LE FILIPPINE --> the Philipines
NELE FILIPPINE --> in the Philipines
Some Nations, as I said before, have no article at all and always appear with out it:
ISRAELE --> Israel
IN ISRAELE --> in Israel
SAN MARINO --> San Marino
IN SAN MARINO --> in San Marino
With cities we never use articles
PARIGI --> Paris
VIVO A PARIGI --> I live in Paris
Unless the city has an article inside the name like:
IL CAIRO --> Cairo
VIVO AL CAIRO --> I live in Cairo city ( AL = A + IL)
LA VELLA --> La Vella
VIVO ALLA VELLA --I live in La Vella
and unless you want to add information on the city as an adjunct:
LA PARIGI DEGLI ANNI VENTI --> Paris in the '20s
LA ROMA CHE NON HAI MAI VISTO --> The Rome you've never seen
TIME
The days of the week are preceded by the article only when we mean "usually every single day of the week"
ODIO IL LUNEDÌ --> i hate mondays
IL MARTEDÌ VADO IN PALESTRA --> I go to the gym every tuesday
But we don't use the article when the thing we are talking about is going to happen (or happened) only once on that precise day
CI VEDIAMO GIOVEDI' --> see you on thursday
SABATO SONO ANDATA AD UN CONCERTO --> I went to a concert on saturday
VENERDI' ABBIAMO UNA RIUNIONE --> we have a meeting planned for this friday
Months are never used with articles
ODIO OTTOBRE PERCHE' PIOVE SEMPRE --> I hate october because it's too rainy
A GENNAIO PARTO PER IL CANADA --> In January I'm going to Canada
Years, on the contrary, are always preceded by the article, unlike English
SIAMO NEL 2024 --> it's 2024 (NEL = IN + IL)
FORSE L'AMERICA FU SCOPERTA PRIMA DEL 1492 --> maybe America was discovered before 1492 (DEL = DI + IL)
IL 2001 E' STATO L'ANNO IN CUI E' NATO MIO FIGLIO --> 2001 was the year my son was born
We also use the article to tell the hour
SONO LE DUE --> it's two o'clock
CI VEDIAMO ALLE QUATTRO --> see you at 4 p.m (ALLE = A + LE)
To tell the day of the month we always use the article:
OGGI E' IL DUE (DI) APRILE --> today it's April the 2nd
L'HO VISTO IL 30 DI GIUGNO --> I saw him on June the 30th
GEOGRAPHY
Rivers, mountains, lakes, flat lands, sees are always preceded by an article
IL PO --> the Po river
SUL TAMIGI --> on the Thames
IL KILIMANGIARO --> Kilimanjaro
L'OUTBACK AUSTRALIANO --> the Australian Outback
NELL'OCEANO INDIANO --> in the Indian Ocean
AL LAGO MICHIGAN --> to Lake MIchigan (AL = A + IL)