Italian Articles: When to Use Il, Lo, La or L'

The Italian articles chart: definite and indefinite

The chart shows every article by gender and first sound, in the singular, in the plural and with a or an.

Il is the most common article in our dictionary, with 21,976 nouns, and la comes close behind with 20,632. L' goes with 6,391 masculine nouns and 6,411 feminine ones, and lo with 2,475. Because l' fits both genders, it hides the gender. Learn l'amico together with un amico, and l'amica with un'amica. To look up any noun, or a whole list, use the Italian article checker.

Lo or il: when to use lo

Masculine nouns take il before an ordinary consonant and lo before the sounds below. S plus a consonant is the one that matters most: of the 2,475 nouns in our dictionary that take lo, 2,042 start that way, as in lo studente and lo spazio. Z comes next with 238, as in lo zio.

Among the everyday nouns in our quiz, 65 take lo, such as lo spazio, lo spettacolo, lo spirito, lo scopo, lo sguardo, lo stomaco, lo zucchero, lo zaino, lo zoo, lo psicologo, lo sport and lo stress. In the plural, lo becomes gli: gli studenti, gli zii. With a or an, uno goes where lo goes: uno studente, uno zio.

Feminine nouns have no lo. They take la before any consonant, s plus a consonant and z included: la studentessa, la zia, and la iena, where the i is said like the y in yes.

Two of the lo rules are looser in print than in textbooks. The textbook rule for pn gives lo pneumatico, but Italian books print il pneumatico slightly more often, so our tools show both. Gn holds better: lo gnocco appears about three times as often as il gnocco, and gli gnocchi far more often than i gnocchi. These counts come from Google Books (Italian books, 2000 to 2019).

L' and un': when the article loses a vowel

Before a vowel, lo and la shorten to l': l'amico, l'amica. The plural articles don't shorten, so it's gli amici and le amiche.

The indefinite article catches more learners out. Un'amica takes an apostrophe because una drops its final a before the vowel. Un amico takes none, because un is the article masculine nouns take anyway, as in un libro. The rule to remember is un amico but un'amica.

H, w, j, y and borrowed words

Italian picks the article by sound, not by spelling, and borrowed words show it best. The h is silent, so hotel takes the article of a word that starts with a vowel: l'hotel, gli hotel. English w and j are said as consonants, so it's il weekend, il whisky, il web, il jazz and il jet. A French ch said like sh takes lo, as in lo chef and lo champagne, and so does a y said like the y in yes: lo yoga, lo yogurt.

For some borrowed words, usage decides, and Italian books print two articles. We measured them in Google Books (Italian books, 2000 to 2019), and our tools show both, the more common first: l'haiku or lo haiku, la hostess or l'hostess, la home or l'home, and lo humour or l'humour. Where print settles it, it's la hall, with the h said, but l'hotel, l'hamburger, l'hobby, l'hockey and l'hacker. It's also il whisky, not lo whisky.

The plural articles: i, gli and le

In the plural, masculine nouns take i or gli, and feminine nouns always take le. Gli goes wherever the singular takes lo or l': gli studenti, gli zii, gli amici. Every other masculine noun takes i, as in i libri.

Feminine is the easy side. It's le case and le amiche, with no change before a vowel. One everyday noun breaks the pattern: il dio becomes gli dei, which takes gli although it starts with d.

Masculine or feminine: gender by ending

The ending often tells you the gender, and the gender plus the first sound gives you the article. Masculine is the more common gender in our dictionary: of the one-word nouns with one gender, 30,842 are masculine and 27,043 feminine, about 53 in 100. That's near enough to even that a guess with no rule behind it is worth little. The tables show how often each ending holds: how many of the nouns with that ending have that gender, out of all the nouns in our dictionary that end that way. A noun counts under its longest ending, so stazione counts under -zione, not under -e.

Feminine endings

Several endings point firmly to feminine. All 526 nouns in our dictionary that end in -enza are feminine, and so are all 40 that end in -udine. Nouns in -ura miss three times in 1,548, and nouns in -tà seven times in 2,575.

The -a ending covers the most nouns: 14,298 of the 15,269 that end in -a are feminine, or 93.6 percent. Among the everyday nouns in our quiz, 24 in -a are masculine, such as il problema, il sistema, il programma, il pianeta, il cinema, il papa, il poeta and lo yoga. Most nouns in -si are feminine too, 1,024 of 1,074, as in la crisi, though it's il brindisi. Nouns in -zione are feminine 3,191 times out of 3,206, as in la stazione.

Nouns in -tà are feminine, but other nouns that end in an accented vowel lean the other way: 230 masculine to 24 feminine in our dictionary. They include everyday words: il caffè, il tè, il tiramisù, il menù and il papà.

Masculine endings

Masculine has its own firm endings. All 2,142 nouns in -mento are masculine, and -ismo misses three times in 1,785. The -o ending, the largest of them, holds 16,678 times out of 16,753, or 99.5 percent.

The everyday exceptions to -o include la mano, l'auto, la foto, la metro, la radio and la moto. Most of them are shortened words, as la foto is short for la fotografia.

Nouns that end in a consonant, such as il bar, il film and lo sport, are masculine 1,134 times out of 1,209. The exceptions include la star, la gang, la privacy, la password, la hall and la mail.

Nouns in -one lean masculine once -zione and -sione are taken out, 1,267 times out of 1,392. Everyday nouns in -ione are another matter, and they have a section of their own below.

Endings that hold most of the time

The endings below hold most of the time, but not often enough to bet on. Treat them as first guesses.

Most nouns ending in -e are masculine: 2,995 of the 4,084 in our dictionary that no longer ending covers, or 73.3 percent. Among the everyday nouns in our quiz the lead is smaller, 135 masculine to 74 feminine, and counting every everyday noun in -e, -zione and -ore included, the split is even, 219 to 223. The feminine ones include la madre, la gente, la notte, la morte, la fine, la mente, la voce, la luce, la chiave, la pace, la legge and la nave, so learn the article with every noun in -e.

Most nouns in -amma are masculine, 121 of 135, as in il programma, though it's la fiamma. Most in -ema are masculine too, 75 of 88, as in il problema, with la crema as the everyday exception. Nouns in -ite lean the other way, 462 of 522 feminine, but il limite and il satellite are masculine. Nouns in -ie are feminine 45 times out of 75, as in la serie and la specie.

Nouns in -ma

Many Italian nouns in -ma are masculine: il problema, il sistema, il programma, il tema, il dramma, il trauma, il diploma, lo schema. Most of the masculine ones come from Greek.

But -ma is no rule. In our dictionary it's 501 masculine to 226 feminine, and among the everyday nouns in our quiz the feminine ones are the majority, 20 to 14. They include la mamma, l'arma, la vittima, l'anima, la forma, la calma, la fiamma, la cima, la lacrima, la firma and la crema. In everyday Italian the masculine ones are the shorter list, so learn them by name.

Nouns in -ione, -ista and other person nouns

Nouns in -zione and -sione are firm feminine endings, and -ione as a whole leans the same way: 3,613 feminine to 320 masculine. Take -zione and -sione out, and the dictionary count turns, 294 masculine to 98 feminine. Everyday Italian turns it back. Among the quiz nouns that are left, ten are feminine (la ragione, la prigione, la questione, la stagione, la riunione, l'opinione, la religione, l'unione, la regione and la gestione) and three masculine: il campione, il copione and il maglione.

Person nouns in -ista follow the person meant, and our dictionary has 1,381 of them. A male artist is l'artista or un artista, and a female artist is l'artista or un'artista. The plurals are gli artisti and le artiste. The quiz has 15 of them. A noun in -ista that names a thing has one gender: la lista, la vista, la pista.

Other person nouns work the same way. Our dictionary has 2,985 nouns that follow the person meant, the -ista nouns among them, such as il or la cantante and il or la collega, with the plurals i colleghi and le colleghe. Some person nouns have a feminine form of their own instead: amico, amica, and studente, studentessa.

Irregular plurals and plurals that switch gender

Some masculine nouns turn feminine in the plural, and they take le. Our quiz has 17 everyday ones:

• il paio, le paia
• il braccio, le braccia
• il dito, le dita
• l'orecchio, le orecchie
• l'osso, le ossa
• l'uovo, le uova
• l'urlo, le urla
• il migliaio, le migliaia
• il ginocchio, le ginocchia
• il centinaio, le centinaia
• il miglio, le miglia
• il grido, le grida
• il carcere, le carceri
• il labbro, le labbra
• il riso, le risa (laughter)
• il lenzuolo, le lenzuola
• il corno, le corna

Braccio has a second plural as well. Le braccia are the arms of the body, and i bracci are the arms of a crane, a river or a building.

Eight everyday nouns have an irregular plural:

• il dio, gli dei
• l'uomo, gli uomini
• l'arma, le armi
• il tempio, i templi
• l'ala, le ali
• la mezzanotte, le mezzenotti
• il gentiluomo, i gentiluomini
• la cassaforte, le casseforti

Nouns that don't change in the plural

Many Italian nouns keep the same form in the plural, and only the article shows the number. Our dictionary has 7,030 of them, and our quiz 162 everyday ones, 105 masculine and 57 feminine:

• la città, le città
• il caffè, i caffè
• il film, i film
• il bar, i bar
• la crisi, le crisi
• la serie, le serie
• la foto, le foto
• lo sport, gli sport

This is where the article earns its keep. La città and le città differ only in the article.

Two genders, two meanings

Some nouns change their meaning with their gender. 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 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."

Other nouns take either gender with the same meaning, and our dictionary has 133 of them. In our quiz, internet and email are used both ways.

How to learn the Italian articles

Learn the sound rules once, use the endings where they hold, and learn the rest with the article attached.

1. Learn every noun with an article that shows its gender. L' hides it, so pair l'amico with un amico, and l'amica with un'amica.
2. Learn lo by its sounds, starting with s plus a consonant. That sound covers 2,042 of the 2,475 lo nouns in our dictionary, and z covers 238 more. The others (ps, x, gn, pn, y and an i said like y) are short lists.
3. Start with the firm endings. For masculine, that's -o, -mento and -ismo. For feminine, it's -zione, -tà, -ura and -enza. Learn the everyday exceptions with them: la mano, la foto and la radio, il problema and il sistema.
4. Learn the masculine -ma nouns by name. Il problema, il programma and il tema are masculine, but la forma and la vittima are feminine.
5. Learn the article with every noun in -e. Even with -zione, -ore and the other longer endings left out, everyday nouns in -e are only 135 masculine to 74 feminine, so the ending is a first guess at best.
6. Learn the plurals that switch gender. Le uova, le braccia, le dita and le ossa take le.

To practice, the Italian article quiz asks for the articles of 2,281 everyday nouns, and its Tricky starts set takes only the 553 nouns that start with a sound to watch, such as studente, zio, psicologo and hotel. To look up a noun, or a list of up to 100, the Italian article checker gives the article, the gender and the plural, and copies the list with its articles for your flashcards. After a few runs through Tricky starts, il zio begins to sound wrong, which is the point.

Frequently asked questions

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).