Italian Definite Articles & Possession

Weilà raga! Here are notes of everything I went over in my video on Italian Definite Articles & Possession (how to say "my" in Italian).

In Italian,  there are several ways of saying "the." It depends on the amount of things you're referring to and their gender. In Italian, both people and objects have genders.

Here are all of the different ways to say "the" in Italian: il, la, i, le, l', lo, gli

To make things easier when learning these definite articles for the first time, I consider there to be 7 definite articles in Italian, as you can see above. However, in reality there are only 6. You see, the L' definite articles is actually the same as using il or la, but the word that follows begins with a vowel. So what happens is you combine the definite article and the word that begins with a vowel to have something that looks like this: l'amore (= il + amore), l'aula (= la + aula).  

Let's now take a look at all of the definite articles (which I'll be dividing into 7 sections) and when and how they're used in Italian:

il (pronounced eel) - THE for masculine, singular words that end in O

ex: il libro = the book

 

i (pronounced like the letter e in English) - THE for masculine, plural words. Change word ending from O - I

ex: il libro becomes I LIBRI = the books

 

la (pronounced as it's written, la) - THE for feminine, singular words that end in A

ex: la porta = the door

 

le (pronounced leh) - THE for feminine, plural words. Change word ending from A - E

ex: la porta becomes LE PORTE = the doors

 

lo (pronounced ) - THE for masculine, singular words that start with s+consonant (consonant = any letter that's not a vowel) or z.

ex: lo schermo = the screen, lo zaino = the backpack

 

gli (pronounced ji or yee) - THE for masculine, plural words that start with s+consonant or z. Change word ending from O - I

ex: lo schermo (the screen) becomes GLI SCHERMI = the screens; lo zaino (the backpack) becomes GLI ZAINI = the backpacks

 

l' - THE for masculine or feminine words that begin with a vowel

ex: l'anno = the year

 

For masculine words that begin with a vowel, to make plural use GLI and change word ending from O to I, like with all masculine words

ex: l'anno (the year) becomes GLI ANNI = the years

 

For feminine words that begin with a vowel, to make plural use LE and change word ending from A to E, like with all feminine words

ex: l'aula (the classroom) becomes LE AULE = the classrooms

 

For feminine words that end with an accent mark on the last letter, DO NOT change the last letter from A to E when making the word plural. Just change the definite article from LA to LE

ex: l'università (the university) becomes LE UNIVERSITÀ = the universities

ex2: la città (the city) becomes LE CITTÀ = the cities

Now let's move onto seeing how to say "my" in Italian. You'll find the logic to be similar to that of the definite articles above:

il mio (pronounced eel-me-yo) - MY for masculine, singular words

ex: il mio libro = my book

 

i miei (pronounced e-meyay) - MY for masculien, plural words. Change word ending from O - I

ex: il mio libro (my book) becomes I MIEI LIBRI = my books

 

la mia (pronounced as it's written la-meya) - MY for feminine, singular words

ex: la mia macchina = my car

 

le mie (pronounced leh-me-eh) - MY for feminine, singular words. Change word ending from A - E

ex: la mia macchina (my car) becomes LE MIE MACCHINE = my cars

 

DO NOT USE L', GLI, AND LO WITH MY

Just say: IL MIO ZAINO (my backback) and I MIEI ZAINI (my backpacks)

LA MIA AULA (my classroom) and LE MIE AULE (my classrooms)

 

Always remember to SPREAD THE LOVE!

Tom

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Italian Prepositions & Prepositional Articles

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Italian Double Object Pronouns