60 Comments
Il ragazzo - i ragazzi
L'astuccio - gli astucci
All these articles mean THE and are used for italian masculine words. IL is singular, used when the following word begins with a consonant.
L' is also singular (masculine AND feminine!) but used with words beginning with a vowel.
When making the plurals "IL" becomes "i" and "L'" becomes "GLI" (in masculine words!!! With feminine words L' becomes LE)
Hope this helps!
yea anything with a vowel at the bigining has gli as the article when it changes to plural im not sure about feminine nouns with a vowel though
You are right. "bambini" is used for children (about 1-9). "ragazzi" is used for teenagers, while the left 10-12yo can be called "ragazzini" (-ini is diminutive).
Sometimes for a kind of "stuff", like bread, Italian uses the article and English doesn't. So according to context this could be "The boys eat bread" or "The boys eat the bread".
I have just started learning Italian on this site from scratch and am loving it. However I have now got myself confused. I put il instead of l'. Why is this wrong? Is it that il is singular and l' is plural? And is l' masculine only?
That's what I thought. I was tasked with translating "I ragazzi mangiano il pane" into English. I translated it as "The boys eat the bread"
However, I was marked as wrong. With the answer being: "The children eat the bread".
So to be clear:
If you know the group of children are all boys; you say "I ragazzi".
If you know the group of children are all girls; you say "Le ragazze".
If you don't know either way; you say "I ragazzi".
And if it's a mixed group you say i ragazzi. The male gender is the default.
It should be reported. "Ragazzi" does not mean children, it means boys (or mixed gender). Children translates as "bambini".
It's a language grammar difference. For example, in French, they refer to countries using 'the.' La France (The France). But in English, we just say France. Same thing here, with foods like bread and fish, Italian uses 'the', but it's usually not necessary in English, unless it's a specific fish or piece of bread.
Is the definite article optional as in 'loro mangiano pane' and 'i ragazzi mangiano il pane'?
Same question as gypsy57. Also, why does the translation show just 'eat bread' and not 'eat the bread' (albeit accepting both) when it has a definite article 'il' meaning 'the'?
Hi london622 - I think I've got it now! Il is the singular masculine definite article therefore it would be il ragazzo - ragazzo = boy. Changing the o to I at the end makes it boys - ragazzi - therefore you have to change the singular masculine definitive article into the plural one - from il to I. For the girl it would be la ragazza, for the girls it would be le ragazze. Hope that helps.
Ugh i understand the rules with ragazze, ragazza, etc. vs. ragazzi but when the lady speaks its impossible to decIde what she said!!!
Aaa thank you dulingo friends now i now Im am thinking dat il pane the beef
If I have learned english good enough, "the boys" means "i ragazzi" (boys who are over 14 years) and "the children" means "i ragazzini", (the children who are from 6-7 to 13 years).
I would ask you all a question: could "children" be used for babies under 4-5 years? Thanks for the answers. :-)))
what is the article used prior to ragazzi? I used I but was marked wrong? I don't know my mistake. thank you
Actually it's because of Latin: neuter was very similar to masculine and in modern languages they were united.
So, mangiano means to eat but it's for the pronoun they. Not only that, but it apparently can be used for girls/women and boys/men as well?
Loro mangiano il pane - They eat the bread
I ragazzi/gli uomini/le ragazze/le donne mangiano il pane - The boys/men/girls/women eat the bread
Is this correct?
so mangiano is written whe followed with a plural subject... except when written after We it becomes Mangiamo and mangia is for the singlar subjects ?
