Italian ⋙ Italian A1

Welcome to our Italian grammar course for beginners! Today, we're going to talk about adjectives.

Adjectives are words that describe or modify nouns, giving more information about their qualities or characteristics. In Italian, adjectives need to agree with the nouns they modify in number and gender. This means that the ending of adjectives changes based on the gender and number of the noun it refers to.

Gender Agreement

In Italian, adjectives have different forms for feminine and masculine nouns. To match the gender of the noun they refer to, adjectives follow these rules.

Masculine Adjectives

Many masculine adjectives end in -o. To change them to feminine, replace the -o with -a.

Adjectives that end in -e are the same for feminine and masculine nouns:

Number Agreement

Adjectives must also agree in number with the nouns they modify. This means that if the noun is singular, the adjective should be singular too. If the noun is plural, the adjective should be plural.

Singular Adjectives

The singular form of adjectives is used with singular nouns.

Plural Adjectives

The plural form of adjectives is used with plural nouns.

Placement of Adjectives

In Italian, adjectives are placed after the noun they modify. This is different from English, where adjectives often come before the noun. Here are some examples:

There are some adjectives that can come before the noun to emphasize or clarify a particular quality. These adjectives are often related to beauty, age, goodness, or size. Some examples include:

Irregular Adjectives

As with many languages, Italian has some irregular adjectives that do not follow the standard rules for gender or number agreement. These adjectives need to be memorized separately.
Examples:
Feminine Singular to Feminine Plural:

Comparison of Adjectives

Italian adjectives can also be used to make comparisons, just like in English. Here are the three degrees of comparison:
Positive: This is the basic form of the adjective without any comparison.

Comparative: Used to compare two things or people.
There are two types of comparative forms:

Comparative of Equality: "così... come" (as... as):

Comparative of inequality: "più... di" (more... than) or "meno... di" (less... than)

Superlative: Used to express the highest degree of a quality.
There are two types of superlative forms:

Superlative of Equality: "il più... di" (the most... of)

Superlative of Inequality: "il meno... di" (the least... of)

Summary

In this lesson, you learned the main features of adjectives in Italian. We hope this will help you in your further study of Italian.
Pay attention to the new words you come across in the lesson:
We are waiting for you in the next lesson, where we will talk about common Italian prepositions. Good luck!