Italian indefinite articles

Italian loves its articles and I am sure after this little guide you will love them too.

Let’s start from the very beginning. What is an article? An article is that little word you find before a noun. Think of words like “a bus“, “a street“ , “an elephant“ - “a“ and “an“ are two articles; two indefinite articles, actually. You can also say “the bus“, “the street“, “the elephant“ and those are articles too, but we are going to talk about them later, here. 

They distinguish the generic from the specific, the known from the unknown:

Puoi vedere un cane dalla finestra = You can see a dog from the window. [unknown dog]

Puoi vedere il cane dalla finestra = You can see the dog from the window. [our dog or a dog we know about]

For now let’s focus on the first type, ‘generic or indefinite articles’. There are four in Italian:

un - uno (masc)

una - un’ (fem)

In Italian the indefinite article can be found with singular, countable nouns and it has to agree with the gender (masculine or feminine) of the noun it refers to. But it also depends on the initial letter of the word which follows. First of all, we have to know if our word is masculine or feminine [how? - head here for gender of Italian nouns]. 

Feminine nouns (UNA, UN’)

Is it a feminine word? Does it start with a consonant (B, C, D, F, …)? Then you need the article UNA:

casa = house —— una casa = a house

macchina = car —— una macchina = a car

voce = voice —— una voce = a voice

Is it a feminine word? Yes. Does it start with a vowel (A, E, I, O, U)? Then you need the article UN’ [do you see that little apostrophe? In Italian we don’t like the sound of two vowels one immediately after the other, so we usually drop the final vowel in the first word. UN’ stands for UNA, where the final A has been dropped in front of the following vowel]

insalata = salad —— un’ insalata = a salad

isola = island —— un’ isola = an island

ape = bee —— un’ ape = a bee

Masculine nouns (UN, UNo)

Is it a masculine word? Does it start with a ‘simple consonant’ (B, C, D, F, G, L, M, N, P, Q, R, S, T, V) or a vowel (A, E, I, O, U)? Then you just need the article UN:

telefono = telephone —— un telefono = a telephone

libro = book —— un libro = a book

amico = friend —— un amico = a friend

Is it a masculine word? Does it start with a ‘special consonant’ [Special consonants are: S when followed by another consonant (SB, SC, SD, ST, …) or one of the following letters (Z, X, Y, PS, PN, GN)] ? Then you will use the article UNO:

studente = student —— uno studente = a student

scrittore = writer —— uno scrittore = a writer

zucchino = courgette —— uno zucchino = a courgette

yogurt = yogurt —— uno yogurt = a yogurt

All clear? Let’s recap:

Femminine una + consonant

un’ + vowel

Masculine un + ‘simple consonant’ or vowel

uno + [s + consonant], gn, pn, ps, x, z, y

Now it’s time to put in practice what you have just learnt!

Test yourself

1. ___ amica

2. ___ treno

3. ___ scuola

4. ___ birra

5. ___ panino

6. ___ psicologo

7. ___ cappuccino

8. ___ stadio

9. ___ idea

10. ___parco

Answers

1. un’ - 2. un - 3. una - 4. una - 5. un - 6. uno - 7. un - 8. uno - 9. un’ - 10. un