In order to create a simple sentence we need to learn some adjectives and nouns.
ITALIANO – Italian (of Italian origin) but also Italian (noun – a person)
AMERICANO – American – (of American origin) but also American (noun – a person)
BELLO – beautiful
BRAVO – good, capable
BUONO – good, tasty
NUOVO – new
PICCOLO – small, little
VECCHIO – old
GRANDE – big, huge
GIOVANE – young
IL CORNETTO – a croissant
IL GELATO – an ice-cream
LA PASTA – pasta
LA PIZZA – a pizza
QUESTO – this
E – and (notice the pronunciation, it’s slightly different, in fact you can see that the “è” as “is” is with the accent)
MA – but
NON – not
CHE – what a…, how…
PER FAVORE – please
PREGO – you’re welcome (after “thank you”)
The nouns are written with the definite article, we will learn more in Lesson 6.
An alphabetical list of the vocabulary can be found here.
GRAMAMATICAL GENDER and NOUNS and ADJECTIVES
Let’s learn about the grammatical gender – masculine and feminine.
In Italian, most of the nouns and adjectives (in singular) finish with “o”, “a” or “e”.
Remember that usually the noun / adjective finishing with:
O → masculine
A → feminine
E → can be both masculine or feminine.
It means that by simply changing only the final letter you can change the gender of the noun (where possible) / adjective. Let’s see the rule:
O → A = masculine → feminine
E → E = the noun / adjective is identical in masculine and feminine
Let’s see the nouns and adjectives we´ve learned:
ITALIANO – ITALIANA
AMERICANO – AMERICANA
BELLO – BELLA
BRAVO – BRAVA
BUONO – BUONA
PICCOLO – PICCOLA
NUOVO – NUOVA
VECCHIO – VECCHIA
QUESTO – QUESTA
GRANDE – GRANDE
GIOVANE – GIOVANE
ATTENTION !!
In Italian usually the adjective is after the noun, the opposite of English, for example:
Italiano giovane (young Italian), pizza grande (big pizza)…
NEGATIVE
How to create a negative sentence? Simply by adding “non” before the verb.
For example:
(Io) non sono americano.
(Lui) non è bravo.
Let’s notice one of the meanings of “che”, it can be used for exclamations as:
CHE BELLO – How beautiful
CHE BRAVO – How good you are….
CIAO BELLO! CIAO BELLA! – these are completely normal greetings in Italy, especially in Rome 🙂 It’s not referring to a physical beauty but it is a friendly greeting.
! If you want to learn something more about the Italian food (pizza, pasta, cornetto, gelato) go to then article Italian cuisine – part 1.
Do you want to PRACTICE what you have just learned?
Try our EXCERCISES for lessons 1-4.