Gender of nouns

Jemma

Jemma

Hi,

just to clarify is it true that all nouns that end in "-e" imply that it can be of either gender, thus we use the articles (the/ a, an) according to the gender of the speaker/recipient of the message?

Example:
Questo è una molto stagione! (This is a good season!) ----- A girl speaking
Questo è un molto stagione!                                                    ----- A guy speaking

Grazie.
Lucia - Rocket Languages Tutor

Lucia - Rocket Languages Tutor

Hi jingling,

No, the articles are not used according to the gender of the speaker but according to the gender of the noun itself. Nouns ending in -e, as you correctly said, can be either masculine or feminine and there's no way to tell without looking up the word on a dictionary.

Tigre, for example, is a feminine noun, and it will always remain feminine, no matter the gender of the speaker. Let's take a look at your example:

Questa è una bella stagione.

(Molto means "very, much", bello means "beautiful, good".

"A season" is always translated as una stagione, never as un stagione. Both a guy and a girl will treat stagione as a feminine noun.

When you're describing yourself or the recipient of the message, that's when things change according to one's gender:
A guy will say "io sono stanco" (I am tired, masculine), while a girl will say "io sono stanca" (feminine).
In the same way, a guy will ask a girl "sei stanca?" (are you tired?, feminine) and the other way around. This is because they are describing themselves, not another object whose gender is given by the grammar rules of the language.

Hope this helps! :)

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