Noun gender

Italian nouns are masculine or feminine, including words for objects. Unlike English, Italian uses grammatical gender throughout the noun phrase. Learn each noun with its article: il or la.

Nouns ending in -o are often masculine: libro. Nouns ending in -a are often feminine: casa. These are clues, not rules without exceptions. Articles help you see the gender; we will study them separately.

The ending -e occurs in both genders: il fiore (the flower), la notte (the night). This ending alone does not tell you the gender.

La mano is feminine although it ends in -o. Il problema is masculine although it ends in -a. Some occupations have paired forms: il cuoco, la cuoca (male/female cook). Not all words for people form the feminine by changing -o to -a.

Learn nouns with their articles. -o often indicates masculine gender and -a feminine gender. Check -e nouns and exceptions in a dictionary. Do not assume that objects have no grammatical gender just because they do not in English.