Gli articoli indeterminativi

Today we are going to study “Gli Articoli indeterminativi” (The Indefinitive articles) in Italian.

Indefinitive articles are used to name things or persons and to introduce them in a conversation. 

The Indefinitive articles in Italian are:

ITALIAN	ENGLISH
UN/ UNO	A/ AN (male)
UNA	A/ AN (female)
UN’	A/ AN (female starting with a vowel)

If you are using a female noun you have to use “Una” or “Un’” when the noun starts with a vowel.  Otherwise, you use “Un” or “Uno”.  In the following lessons we are going to study how to know if a noun is male or female in Italian.

We have to use “Uno” if the following noun starts with z or s + consonant.  For the rest of the male nouns, we use “Un”

UNO ZIO (An uncle)

UNO STADIO (A Stadium)

We use una or un with an apostrophe when the female noun starts with a vowel:

UNA BICICLETTA (A bike)

UN’OCCASIONE (An occasion)

We need to use the plural partitives as the plural form for the Indefinitive articles:

SINGULAR	PLURAL
UN	DEI
UNO	DEGLI
UNA – UN’	DELLE

UN LIBRO

(A BOOK)

DEI LIBRI

(SOME BOOKS)

UNO ZIO

(AN UNCLE)

DEGLI ZII

(SOME UNCLES)

UNA BICICLETTA

(A BIKE)

DELLE BICICLETTE

(SOME BIKES)