Using Adjectives File

Using Adjectives
Italian
Adjectives
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What is an adjective?
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Write down some examples of adjectives?
In English
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How do we describe a noun in English?
What is the word order?
Do we need to change the words at all?
What happens when we want to describe
something in the plural?
What rules do we have in English when using
adjectives?
In Italian – Gli aggettivi
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Italian adjectives must agree with nouns both
in gender and number.
There are two groups of adjectives in Italian.
~Adjectives ending in –e
~Adjectives ending in –a or –o
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Adjectives ending in –e
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Adjectives ending in –e have a common
ending for both singular masculine and
singular feminine.
Giovane (young)
Verde (green)
The endings of the first group of adjectives can
be summarised as follows
Adjectives ending in -e
SINGULAR
PLURAL
-e
-i
-e
-i
Exercise – Look up the words in the dictionary
but make sure you check whether to keep them in
singular or change to plural.
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Mia mamma non e’ piu _______________
(young)
Stefania e sua sorella sono spesso ________ da
scuola (absent)
I film di Benigni sono sempre ____________ (fun)
I grattacieli di Sydney sono molto __________
(big)
Non ti credo, quello che dici e’ __________
(impossible)
Quella Salsa non mi piace, e’ troppo _________
(spicy)
Adjectives ending in –a and –o
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There are adjectives that end in –a and –o.
Therefore the ending needs to agree with the
noun.
If the noun that you are describing is a
feminine singular noun then the adjective
should end in an –a and –e for plural.
If the noun that you are describing is a
masculine singular noun then the adjective
should end in an –o and –i for plural.
EG: alto/a
Una donna alta – a tall woman
Un’uomo alto – a tall man
If the feminine adjective ends in –ca or –ga
then the plural becomes –che, -ghe.
EG: una strada lunga becomes strade lunghe.
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If the masculine adjective ends in –co or –go
then the plural becomes –chi or –ghi.
EG: un viale largo becomes viali larghi.
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Table of changes for
adjectives ending in –a or -o
SINGULAR
PLURAL
-a
-e
-o
-I
-ca
-che
-ga
-ghe
-co
-chi
-go
-ghi