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: How can I correctly conjugate the adjective bello? |
Explanation |
Bello is a very common Italian adjective that means “beautiful” or “good.” Despite being common, it’s irregular and doesn’t follow the regular forms of adjectives. |
It follows the article rules instead. Let’s see all the forms it can take. |
Just like the masculine article lo, it’s bello before a masculine noun starting with z, x, ps, pn, gn, y, s+consonant. For example: |
Bello zaino (“beautiful backpack”) |
Bello spettacolo (“good show”) |
The adjective becomes bell’, with an apostrophe, before a masculine noun starting with a vowel. For example: |
Bell’uomo (“beautiful man”) |
As gli is the plural form for lo and l’, with an apostrophe, similarly begli is the plural form of bello and bell’: |
Begli zaini (“beautiful backpacks”) |
Begli uomini (“beautiful men”) |
It’s bel before all other masculine nouns, which would take the masculine article il. For example: |
Bel gatto (“beautiful cat”) |
Just like i is the plural form of il, similarly bei is the plural form of bel: |
Bei gatti (“beautiful cats”) |
It’s bella before all feminine nouns, which would take the feminine article la. For example: |
Bella donna (“beautiful woman”) |
Bella isola (“beautiful island”) |
An exception is bell’amica (meaning “good friend” in an ironic way). |
Just like le is the plural form of la, belle is the plural feminine form: |
Belle donne (“beautiful women”) |
Belle isole (“beautiful islands”) |
Outro
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The demonstrative adjective quello (“that”) follows the same rules as bello, and it rhymes! |
Pretty interesting, right? |
If you have any more questions, please leave a comment below! |
A presto! “See you soon!” |
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