
L’amore. Gli spaghetti. La nonna. Il vino. L’Italia. What are the little words you see before all these nouns? They all mean the; they are all definite articles. What are they and why so many different ones? How to use definite articles in Italian? In this article I will answer these questions and I will help you make sense of this tricky feature of the Italian language.
What are definite articles?
Basic rule, which applies to many different languages, including English: definite articles are used to refer to a specific thing or person. So:
THE house you see is mine. = LA casa che vedi è mia.
THE black dog is mine. = IL cane nero è mio.
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