Italian plurals

ITALIAN PLURALS

This lesson will focus on one of the most challenging aspects of the Italian language for students: plurals!

As you continue reading, you will understand the rules governing regular plurals… but be also prepared to learn about the MANY exceptions, that is, words with irregular plurals.

FEMININE WORDS ENDING IN -A

As you probably already know, there are many feminine words in Italian that end in -a.

These words are regular, and the plural is formed by replacing -a with the ending -e.

As a general rule, remember that feminine words ending in -a form the plural by replacing -a with -e.

Then, there are some words that follow this rule, but for which you need to pay a little bit of attention to spell them correctly.

Let’s look at these words in the following sections.

FEMININE WORDS ENDING IN -CA & -GA

For feminine words ending in -ca and -ga, the plural becomes -che and -ghe.

Feminine words ending in -ca or -ga form the plural by replacing -ca or -ga with -che or -ghe.

FEMININE WORDS ENDING IN -CIA & -GIA

Here we need to pay some attention: if there is a vowel before the final syllable, we simply replace the letter -a with -e, and thus the plural becomes -cie and -gie, as in the general rule.

However, if there is a consonant before the final syllable, the -i- is dropped, and the plural is thus -ce and -ge.

In terms of pronunciation, there is no difference between these plurals.

Let’s look at examples for clarification (in bold, you can see the letter that you have to look at: if it’s a consonant, the -i- is dropped, while if it’s a vowel, the -i- stays):

If the -i- in the final syllable -ia is stressed, the -i is maintained in the plural form, regardless of the preceding letter.

For feminine words ending in -cia or -gia, the plural form can be -ce/-ge or -cie,-gie, depending on the preceding letter or on the stressed syllable.

MASCULINE WORDS ENDING IN -O OR -A

The majority of masculine words in Italian end in -o. These words are regular, and the plural is formed by replacing -o with the letter -i.

Masculine words that end in -a also follow this rule. Let’s look at some examples.

Masculine words ending in -o or -a form the plural by replacing -o or -a with -i.

MASCULINE WORDS ENDING IN -CO OR -GO

Masculine words ending in -co and -go form the plural in -chi/-ci and -ghi/gi (in the second case, the pronunciation of the final syllable changes).

If the word is stressed on the second-to-last syllable, the plural will be in -chi and -ghi; if the stress is on the third-to-last syllable, the plural will usually be in -ci and -gi.

Let’s look at some examples, where the stressed syllable is in bold (the plurals in italics are exceptions, as according to the stressed-syllable method, they should form the plural in the opposite way):

Masculine words ending in -co and -go form the plural by replacing -co or -go with -chi/-ci and -ghi/-gi.

MASCULINE WORDS ENDING IN -IO

For masculine words that end in -io, the plural usually only has one final -i.

However, if the “i” in -io is stressed, the plural word ends with -ii.

Words ending in -io, if the “i” in -io is stressed, end in -ii in their plural form.

WORDS ENDING IN -E

Whether masculine or feminine, words whose singular form ends in -e form the plural in -i.

Words ending in -e form the plural by replacing -e with -i. There’s an exception: “il re” (the king) becomes “i re”.

WORDS THAT DON’T CHANGE WHEN PLURAL

Some Italian words remain unchanged in the plural form. This applies to:

• Words ending with an accented letter;
• Feminine words ending in -o;
• Words ending in -i;
• Some words ending in -ie;
• Some masculine words ending in -a;
• Foreign words.

WORDS THAT CHANGE GENDER WHEN PLURAL

There are Italian words that do something very strange: they change their gender in the plural form (meaning their singular is masculine while their plural is feminine).

This happens to many words for body parts, as well as some other words. In the table below, you’ll find the most common ones, along with their English translation.

IRREGULAR WORDS THAT FOLLOW NO RULES

Last but not least, some plurals in Italian can’t be described by any kind of rule, they’re completely irregular and have to be remembered by heart: don’t worry, with listening, reading, and speaking practice, they’ll soon come naturally!

In the following table, you’ll see the most common ones.

SUMMARY

You may be feeling overwhelmed by the amount of rules and exceptions to the rules, but don’t worry! You don’t have to master Italian plurals right away.

The first thing you need to do is learn to recognise which words are masculine and which ones are feminine: this will help you a lot.

Second of all, you can start by learning the easiest rules (which apply to the majority of words) and then, little by little, you’ll focus on more complicated ones.

You can use the table below, which summarises everything you’ll need to know about plurals, as a guide:

The best way to learn plurals is by using them, hearing them, and reading them. Keep on practicing and Italian plurals will have no more secrets!

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