Italian Article and Gender Checker: Il, Lo, La or L'
This Italian article checker gives you the article for any noun: il, lo, la or l'. Italian picks the article by the noun's gender and by the sound the noun starts with, so knowing that a noun is masculine won't tell you whether it's il libro or lo studente. Type one noun or paste a list of up to 100. Each noun shows its article and gender, the indefinite article (un, uno, una or un'), the plural with its article, the English meaning and a one-line reason. The dictionary holds 65,892 nouns, and a word that isn't among them gets a guess, marked as one. One click copies the list with its articles. It's free and needs no signup.
How the Italian article checker works
Type an Italian noun into the box, or paste a list of up to 100 with commas or new lines between them. A short phrase of two to four words is tried as one noun. If you type an article in front, the checker ignores it and looks up the noun: type la problema and you get il problema, and l'amico is read as amico.
Each noun comes back with its definite article and its gender, named in full, because l' hides it. You also get the indefinite article, the plural with its article and the English meaning. For studente, that's lo studente, masculine, uno studente and gli studenti, along with the feminine form, studentessa. Under each noun, one line gives the reason, such as "lo: it starts with s + a consonant (st)."
Il, lo, la or l': gender and the first sound
Italian has seven definite articles and four indefinite ones, and the noun's gender is only half of the choice. The other half is the sound the noun starts with. Masculine nouns take il before an ordinary consonant, as in il libro. They take lo before s plus a consonant, z, gn, ps, pn, x and y, and before an i said like the y in yes when another vowel follows: lo studente, lo zio, lo gnomo, lo psicologo, lo iato. Feminine nouns take la before any consonant, s plus a consonant and z included, as in la studentessa and la zia. Before a vowel, both genders take l': l'amico, l'amica.
The checker goes by the sound, not the spelling. The h is silent, so it's l'hotel. English w and j count as consonants, as in il weekend and il jazz, and a French ch said like sh takes lo, as in lo chef. The Italian articles guide has the full chart, with the plurals and the indefinite articles.
Nouns with two genders or two meanings
Some Italian nouns change their meaning with their gender, and the checker shows both, each with its meaning. Il fine is an aim or purpose, and la fine is the end. Il capitale is capital in the sense of money, and la capitale is a capital city. Others to watch for are il fronte "front" and la fronte "forehead," il caccia "fighter jet" and la caccia "hunt," and il morale "morale, spirits" and la morale "moral, morals."
Person nouns show both genders too. A singer is il cantante or la cantante, and a colleague is il collega or la collega, with the plurals i colleghi and le colleghe. L'artista works for both, so the checker gives un artista for a man and un'artista for a woman, and the plurals gli artisti and le artiste. In the dictionary, 2,985 nouns follow the person meant, and another 133 take either gender with the same meaning.
Accents and plurals
You don't need an Italian keyboard. Type caffe and the checker finds caffè. Citta finds città, and tiramisu finds tiramisù. When the spelling without accents belongs to another word too, the checker shows both.
Plurals work as well. Type amici and you get l'amico, and gnocchi gives gli gnocchi. Uova gives le uova, the plural of l'uovo, which is masculine in the singular and feminine in the plural. Braccia gives le braccia, the arms of the body, as the plural of il braccio, which also has i bracci for the arms of a crane, a river or a building. Nouns used only in the plural are found too: gli occhiali and le forbici.
Where the articles come from
The dictionary holds 65,892 Italian nouns from English Wiktionary, through kaikki.org. Of the one-word nouns with one gender, 30,842 are masculine and 27,043 feminine, about 53 in 100 masculine. That makes masculine a slightly better guess than feminine, and still a poor one on its own.
Where Italian books print two articles, the checker shows both, the more common first, as measured in Google Books (Italian books, 2000 to 2019). Lo gnocco appears about three times as often as il gnocco. Il pneumatico appears slightly more often than lo pneumatico, though the textbook rule says lo.
A word that isn't in the dictionary can still get an answer. If its ending points firmly to one gender, the checker gives that gender, marks it as a guess and tells you how often the rule holds. An unknown word in -zione gets la, because 3,191 of the 3,206 nouns ending in -zione in the dictionary are feminine. The article then follows from the guessed gender and the first sound.
An Italian article checker for vocabulary lists
The checker answers a single word, but it's made for lists. Paste the nouns from a textbook chapter, or from a text you're reading, and one click copies them back with their articles, one line per noun, such as "lo studente, gli studenti." Because l' hides the gender, the copy marks it m or f, as in "l'amico (m), gli amici," so you won't have to look the noun up twice.
To practice, the Italian article quiz asks for the articles of 2,281 everyday nouns and gives the reason after each answer. The Italian articles guide has the chart, the rules for lo and the endings that give the gender away. For the verbs in the same lesson, print the Italian verb conjugation worksheets or look a verb up in the Italian verb conjugation tables. If you teach more than one language, the Spanish gender checker, the French gender checker and the der die das checker work the same way for el or la, le or la and der, die or das.
Frequently asked questions
Is this Italian article checker free?
Yes. There's no account to make and nothing to install.
Is it il or la mare?
It's il mare. Mare is masculine, and so are caffè, tiramisù, ristorante and pane: il caffè, il tiramisù, il ristorante, il pane. Nouns in -e go both ways, so learn the article with each one. Among the everyday nouns in our quiz, 219 in -e are masculine and 223 feminine, such as la notte and la chiave. Nouns in -tà, such as la città, are feminine, but caffè and tiramisù are masculine, like most other nouns that end in an accented vowel.
When do you use lo or il?
Use lo before a masculine noun that starts with s plus a consonant, z, gn, ps, pn, x or y, or with an i said like the y in yes before another vowel: lo studente, lo zio, lo gnomo, lo psicologo, lo yogurt. Use il before any other consonant, as in il libro, and l' before a vowel, as in l'amico. In the plural, lo and l' become gli, and il becomes i.
Do I need to type accents?
No. Caffe finds caffè, citta finds città and tiramisu finds tiramisù. When the word without accents is another word too, the checker shows both.
What if I type a plural?
The checker finds the singular and shows both. Amici gives l'amico and gli amici, and gnocchi gives gli gnocchi. Uova gives le uova, the plural of l'uovo, which is masculine in the singular but feminine in the plural.
Why does a word show two articles?
There are three reasons. Some nouns change their meaning with their gender: il fine is an aim, and la fine is the end. Some follow the person meant, such as il cantante for a man and la cantante for a woman. And for some, Italian books print both articles, such as lo gnocco and il gnocco, and the checker shows the more common one first.
What if a word isn't in the dictionary?
If its ending points firmly to one gender, the checker gives that gender and marks it as a guess. It also says how often the rule holds: an unknown word in -zione gets la, because 3,191 of the 3,206 nouns ending in -zione in the dictionary are feminine. The article then follows from the gender and the first sound.
Is my text sent anywhere?
The page sends each distinct word once, in lower case, never the text it came from, and nothing is stored.
Licenses and credits
Italian nouns, genders, plurals and pronunciations come from English Wiktionary through kaikki.org (CC BY-SA 4.0). Which article Italian books print before nouns whose first sound the spelling leaves open, such as pneumatico and hall, is counted from the Google Books Ngram data (CC BY 3.0).