Professor Dave here, let’s discuss feminine nouns.
As we’ve already discussed, English speakers often have trouble with the idea of gender
in the Italian language.
But we have to get used to it, as that’s how the language works.
Let’s take a look at feminine nouns, while making it clear that in this particular lesson,
we will primarily be talking about nouns that describe people, animals or professions.
Regular nouns must keep their original gender, which is recognizable by its singular ending.
There are different ways, unfortunately, to make a noun feminine from its original masculine
gender, in the case of describing a female person that is performing a particular job,
and they are not interchangeable.
Here are some examples.
Some words that end in E, A, or ISTA, will be invariable, in which case we simply change
its article.
The article is telling us the gender of the person.
Again, the noun doesn’t change in this case.
Remember that in spite of the fact that the singular forms are the same, some of these
words will also have regular dual plurals, while words ending in E will just change the article.
Looking at some of the same words as before but in the plural:
Many words ending in O or E will change the ending into an A for feminine, but we mustn’t
assume that they do.
Somewhat unpredictably, other nouns ending in E will change to feminine by adding the
suffix ESSA.
Nouns ending in TORE become feminine by changing the ending to TRICE.
And other words simply have different roots altogether.
These are usually family nouns or animal nouns, and they will have to be memorized.
We should note that not all animals have specific words for masculine and feminine, sometimes
animals have just one name.
This could be masculine or feminine, regardless of the fact that all animal species have males
and females amongst them.
We know all of these species have males and females, but that’s just how it goes, and
we must specify whether an organisms of these species is male or female by using the words
maschio and femmina, which mean male and female.
Interestingly enough, there are quite a few words that completely change their meaning
when the article changes from masculine to feminine.
Let’s look at a few examples so that we can ready for these when we see them.
Unfortunately, this is just one of the frustrating features of the Italian language, but it’s
worth it, since it sounds so pretty.
Let’s check comprehension.