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Let's learn Italian!

Did you know that the Italian alphabet has only 21 letters? Usually you won’t see j, k, w, x, or y in Italian words. This makes learning Italian easier by 5 letters!

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Ragazzo or ragazza?

In Italian, all nouns are either masculine or feminine, even when they don't refer to people.

Usually, nouns that end in ‑o (like ragazzo) are masculine, and nouns that end in ‑a (like ragazza) are feminine.

For masculine nouns use un, and for feminine nouns use una.

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Io sono, tu sei...

In English, verbs don’t change their ending much. For example, I run is different from he runs, and we say I am, you are, and she is, but it doesn’t get much more complicated than that.

In Italian, it’s a little different. All verbs change depending on whether it’s I, you, she, etc.

subject	verb (essere)
io I	sono am
tu you	sei are
lui / lei he / she	è is

At the beginning of a sentence, the capital i of io might look like an L, so be careful with that.

And one more thing! In Italian, including words like I, you, he, etc. before a verb is optional.

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La, il, or l’?

La and il both mean the. Use la for feminine nouns, and il for masculine.

If the noun starts with a vowel, use l’ instead of la or il.

Here’s a little recap to help you remember these words more easily.

feminine	masculine
la ragazza	il ragazzo
la mela	il pane
l'acqua	l'uomo