Last night in Italian class, we worked on possessives—mine, yours, hers, theirs. Pretty straightforward, right? Oh no, not in Italian. Like other romance languages, Italian assigns gender to nouns. Flowers are masculine; cars are feminine, and so on. So when you make something possessive, the possession has to agree with the gender of the noun.
Mio fiore (my flower) but mia macchina (my car)
And get this—if the noun is plural, the possessive has to agree in gender AND plural!
Mio fiore, but miei fiori
Mia macchina, but mie macchine
BUT WAIT, THERE’S MORE!
When you use possessives, you ALSO have to use the article “the” in front of it, and THAT also has to agree in gender and plural.
Il mio gatto (my male cat)
I miei gatti (my male cats)
La mia gatta (my female cat)
Le mie gatte (my female cats)
EXCEPT!!!
If you are discussing a family member, then you drop the article
Mia madre (my mother)
UNLESS
You modify the noun with an adjective
La mia madre vecchia (my old mother)
OR
You are talking about more than one family member
Mio zio (my uncle)
Il mio zio alto (my tall uncle)
I miei zii (my uncles)
Il mio cervello sta fondendosi. My brain is melting.
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1 comment:
I was confused before I even reached the bottom of the list. Ugh. Good luck...I'm forwarding this post to my friend that took Italian as well. Too complicated for mio! :)
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