Italian Adjetives

Italian and English differ in their usage of adjectives. Italian descriptive adjectives are usually placed after the noun they modify, and with which they agree in gender and number. As a difference with English, adjectives may be placed both before or after the noun.

  • La grande cittą  »  the large town.
  • La cittą grande  »  the large town.

are both correct, but in the second one the idea of large is slightly more. More examples:

  • La macchina rossa  »  the red car
  • Le macchine rosse  »  the red cars
  • Il divano rosso  »  the red sofa
  • I divani rossi  »  the red sofas

Endings for adjectives: 

- Adjectives ending in -o have four forms. They need to modify their endings for gender and number.

Gender & number Adjective ending
Masculine singular   -o
Masculine plural  -a
Feminine singular  -i
Feminine plural  -e

There's a list of adjectives ending in -o:

  • allegro  »  cheerful, happy
  • grasso  »  fat
  • buono  »  good, kind
  • leggero  »  light
  • cattivo  »  bad, wicked
  • nuovo  »  new
  • freddo  »  cold
  • pieno  »  full
  • stretto  »  narrow
  • timido  »  timid

Exampes:

  • il gatto nero (the black cat, m)  »  i gatti neri (the black cats, m)
  • la gatta nera (the black cat, f)  »  le gatte nere (the black cats, f)
  • il ragazzo cattivo (the bad boy)  »  i ragazzi cattivi (the bad boys)
  • la ragazza cattiva (the bad girl)  »  le ragazze cattive (the bad girls)

More: Italian Adjetives II