How Italian Adjective Agreement works: the rule and examples

An Italian adjective changes its ending to match the gender and number of the noun it describes. In Italian we call it concordanza tra aggettivi e sostantivi, and it’s essential to speak Italian correctly.

What agreement actually means

Nouns can be masculine or feminine (we call it “the gender of the noun”), but also singular or plural (that is “the number of the noun”). Adjectives that refer to a certain noun have to match its gender and number. It does it using different endings.

One detail is worth getting straight early, because it’s a common source of confusion: agreement does not mean the adjective ends with the same letter as the noun. Look at this example:

Lo studente italiano. (The Italian student)

The noun “studente” ends in -e and the adjective “italiano” in -o. The letters are not the same, but gender and number do match because, as we will learn in a few moments, both “studente” and “italiano” are masculine and singular.

The two questions to ask every time

Two questions decide the ending: is the noun masculine or feminine? and is it singular or plural?

Most of the time the ending of the noun answers the first question. Most of the nouns in -o are masculine (il libro, il treno), nouns in -a are feminine (la casa, la città). Nouns in -e can be either, and there the article is your clue: il ristorante is masculine, la stazione is feminine. The plural endings work the same way, -i for masculine and -e for feminine.

Adjectives with four forms: the -o class

This is the biggest group and the one you meet first. Adjectives that end in -o in the dictionary form, like alto, rosso, bello, stanco, have four different endings: -o, -a, -i, -e.

Il ragazzo è alto. (The boy is tall)

La ragazza è alta. (The girl is tall)

I ragazzi sono alti. (The boys are tall)

Le ragazze sono alte. (The girls are tall)

Un libro rosso. (A red book)

Una macchina rossa. (A red car)

Due libri rossi. (Two red books)

Due macchine rosse. (Two red cars)

A few adjectives in this group change their spelling slightly to keep the same sound. Bianco becomes bianchi and bianche, not bianci. The same happens with lungo (lunghi, lunghe), stanco, antico and the rest of the -co and -go family. Adjectives ending in -io, like vecchio and grigio, lose one i in the plural: vecchi, grigie.

Adjectives with two forms: the -e class

Now it gets easier. Adjectives that end in -e, such as grande, intelligente, felice, gentile, interessante, verde, forte, triste, have only two endings: -e for the singular and -i for the plural. The same form serves both genders.

Il ragazzo è intelligente. (The boy is intelligent)

La ragazza è intelligente. (The girl is intelligent)

I ragazzi sono intelligenti. (The boys are intelligent)

Le ragazze sono intelligenti. (The girls are intelligent)

Adjectives with three forms: the -ista class

A smaller group ends in -ista in the dictionary form and keeps that single form for both genders in the singular. The plural splits, -isti for masculine and -iste for feminine.

Luca è ottimista. (Luca is optimistic)

Sara è ottimista. (Sara is optimistic)

Luca e Paolo sono ottimisti. (Luca and Paolo are optimistic)

Sara e Anna sono ottimiste. (Sara and Anna are optimistic)

Ottimista, pessimista, egoista, idealista and the other -ista words all behave this way. A handful of nationality adjectives do too, belga becoming belgi and belghe.

The adjectives that never change

Some adjectives refuse to take part. They are called invariabili, and the form you learn is the form you use, for every gender and every number.

Una camicia blu. (A blue shirt)

Due camicie blu. (Two blue shirts)

Where a word came from tells you what it will do. Colours that arrived in Italian as nouns stay frozen: rosa (rose), viola (violet), lilla, fucsia, indaco, beige, blu. Foreign words keep their foreign shape, chic, snob, sexy. So do colour pairs that name a shade, rosso scuro (dark red) and verde chiaro (light green), where both words stay singular and masculine whatever they describe.

When the group is mixed

If the adjective describes a group with at least one man in it, then we will use the corresponding adjective in the plural masculine form. For example:

Marco e Giulia sono stanchi. (Marco and Giulia are tired)

Le ragazze sono stanche. (The girls are tired)

Two habits that make it stick

Learn every new adjective with its class attached, rather than on its own. Alto is a four-form adjective, grande is a two-form one, blu never moves. Say all four forms out loud once when you write the word down, and the plural stops being a guess.

Then steal sentences from what you already read in Italian, and say them about people you know: mia sorella è simpaticissima, i miei amici sono stanchi, queste scarpe sono nere. Agreement lives in speech far more comfortably than in a table, and after a few weeks of talking the right ending arrives before you have finished the noun.

Try it yourself

You have the rule and the four classes. Here are six sentences to test them on. Choose an ending and you get the reason either way.

Want a Hand?

Agreement is a small set of rules and a large amount of practice, and the practice is slow on your own. A teacher hears the wrong ending the moment you say it and fixes it while the sentence is still in the air, which beats marking your own exercises at the kitchen table.

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