Learn where to put the adjective in Italian
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Intro |
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| Hi everybody! Marika here. Welcome to Ask a Teacher, where I’ll answer some of your most common Italian questions. |
| The Question |
| The question for this lesson is: Where should I put the adjective? |
| Explanation |
| Usually, descriptive adjectives in Italian are placed after the noun they modify. For example: |
| La mela rossa. “The red apple.” |
| Il tavolo verde. “The green table.” |
| However, sometimes you can put an adjective before the noun. There isn’t a fixed rule for when you can invert the order, but here’s a tip: the adjective put after the noun is denotative (the meaning is literal). The adjective put before the noun is connotative (the meaning is suggestive). |
| Let’s see some examples: |
| Un calciatore grande can be translated as “a big footballer.” The meaning here is literal. The guy is tall and well-set. |
| Un grande calciatore means “a great footballer.” |
| The meaning here is figurative. We don’t know if the guy is short or tall; the important thing is he never misses a goal! |
| Un vecchio amico and un amico vecchio are both translated as “an old friend” in English, but they’re not the same! |
| When vecchio is before the noun, it means “long-standing.” |
| When it’s after the noun, it means “advanced in years.” |
| Here’s another example: |
| Ho visto un nuovo film. |
| Here, nuovo has the same meaning as “another”: “I’ve seen another movie.” |
| Ho visto un film nuovo. |
| Here, nuovo is used in its literal meaning: “I’ve seen a new movie.” |
| Sometimes, the meaning doesn’t change, regardless of where you put the adjective. For example, |
| Una bella poesia or una poesia bella both mean “a beautiful poem.” |
| However, some adjectives always come after the noun. These include... |
| Adjectives that specify color, shape, nationality, religion, category. |
| Occhi azzurri (“blue eyes”), una scatola quadrata (“a square box”), un ragazzo americano (“an American boy”). |
| Adjectives that come from the present participle (they end in -ante or -ente) or from the past participle (ending in -uto, -ato, -ito). For example: |
| Un essere vivente (“a living being”), un sole abbagliante (“a dazzling sun”), un libro bruciato (“a burned book”), un paese evoluto (“a developed country”). |
| Adjectives modified by a suffix (-ino, -etto, -uccio, -accio, etc.) |
| Un bambino piccolino (“a tiny child”), un colore giallastro (“a yellowish color”). |
Outro |
| Finally, here’s something that may surprise you. English adjectives occur in a specific order: quantity, quality, size, age, and so on. |
| In Italian, on the other hand, the order doesn’t really matter when there’s more than one adjective. So, if you want to say “a beautiful, tall, young woman” you can say: |
| Una donna bella, alta e giovane, or |
| Una donna giovane, alta e bella, or |
| Una donna alta, giovane e bella |
| and other combinations, too! |
| Pretty interesting, right? |
| If you have any more questions, please leave a comment below! |
| A presto! “See you soon!” |
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