The Partitive Article

(how to say "some" in Italian)

Sometimes, you'll want to refer to a thing without being specific about the quantity. This could be because the noun isn't easily countable (like water) or because it's plural but the amount is irrelevant.

In both instances, in English, you use the word "some":

some water (uncountable, singular)

some books (countable, plural)

In Italian, you use the Partitive Article. Don't be fooled by the complicated sounding name— it's easy!  

It follows the same logic and patterns as the Definite Article…. So print pages 14 & 15 of the BASICS Digital Workbook and let's get started!

(New to this series?… You may want to start with…)

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 ITALIAN BASICS:  
   (1) Indefinite Articles, (How to say "A/AN")
   (2) Definite Articles (singular), (How to say "THE")
   (3) Pluralization, (How to make singular nouns plural)
   (4) Definite Articles (plural), ("THE" for more than one thing)

A little word mash-up...

The partitive article is what happens when you take the preposition "di" and combine it with the Definite Articles:

As you can see, the "i" of "di" goes to "e", the two words get squished together, and if the original article starts with "l" that "l" gets doubled.  The same is true for the plural forms:

All of the forms, including when to use each, can be summed up in the following chart:

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Using with singular nouns...

Not all singular nouns can take the partitive article, it only works with "uncountable nouns."  We'll save the difference between countable and uncountable for another day, but many liquids are considered "uncountable" and some food items can be as well. Here are a few: 

l'acqua (water), il burro (butter), il latte (milk), il pane (bread), il riso (rice), il vino (wine), lo zucchero (sugar)

The difference in meaning between the definite and the partitive article is very similar from English to Italian. Consider these sentences:

l'acqua  vs.  dell'acqua

the water                     some water  

Ho versato l'acqua nel bicchiere.

I poured the water in the glass.

Ho versato dell'acqua nel bicchiere.

I poured some water in the glass.

Both are fine sentences, but the first one seems to refer to previously mentioned water or specific water, whereas the second sentence, in both English and Italian, makes it clear that we're referring to an unspecified amount of no particular water.

Using with plural nouns...

Almost any plural noun can take the partitive article, as long as what we mean is an unspecified number.  It can be useful when we don't know how many exactly, or when it doesn't matter how many:

i libri  vs.   dei libri

the books         some books    

—Ho comprato i libri.

I bought the books.

—Tutti i tre?

All three?

—Sì.

Yes.

—Ho comprato dei libri.

I bought some books.

—Sei andato da Feltrinelli?

You went to Feltrinelli bookstore?

—Sì.

Yes.

Facile, no? (Easy, right?) 

If you haven't done so already, fill-in the "Notes" section of the Partitive Articles worksheet on page 14 of the Italian Basics digital workbook and then complete the quick exercises on page 15! (Submit your answers by email for free corrections!)

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Previous lessons in this series…
(01) Indefinite Articles (How to say "A/AN" in Italian
(02) Definite Articles, singular (How to say "THE" in Italian)
(03) Pluralization, (How to make singular nouns plural)
(04) Definite Articles, plural ("THE" for more than one thing)

 Potrebbe pure interessarti….

  The Beginner's Italian Grammar Series, starting with:

     

How Italian Verbs Work

Basic Italian: Indefinite articles

(how to say A/AN in Italian)

"a" is the indefinite article in English and it is used with nouns to specify that we are talking about a non-specific or general noun:

a dog
a cat
a boy
a girl

Italian nouns have a gender (either masculine or feminine) 

and Italian articles do too…

The masculine indefinite article in Italian is UN:

un libro

a book

un ragazzo

a boy

un giorno

a day

un occhio

an eye

~

The feminine indefinite article in Italian is UNA:

una cosa

a thing

una ragazza

a girl

una casa

a house

una birra

a beer

MASCULINE or FEMININE?

In general, nouns that end in "o" are masculine, and nouns that end in "a" are feminine, but there are some exceptions that must be memorized as well as nouns that end in -e, -à and others.  When learning a new noun, I recommend learning it with the article, so that the association of the noun with its gender becomes automatic.

~

In English, if the word following the article starts with a vowel sound the article becomes "an":

an apple

an orange

an ear

an eye

This "n" has a function— it makes pronunciation easier.

Similary, in Italian, the masculine and feminine articles vary a bit based on the starting sound of the following word:


Masculine nouns that start with Z, S+consonant, PS and GN take UNO:

uno zaino

a backpack

uno sport

a sport

uno psicologo

a psychiatrist

uno gnocco

a dumpling

UN-> UNO

Italian adds the vowel "o" to break up these difficult consonant clusters that would be hard to pronounce together. 

With feminine nouns that begin with these consonants, you don't have to do anything special because UNA already has a vowel:

una zia

an aunt

una sposa

a bride

~

For feminine nouns, UNA becomes shortened to UN' (with an apostrophe) and attached if the following word starts with a vowel: 

un'amica

a friend (that's a girl)

un'aranciata

an orange soda

UNA-> UN'
This rule can be easily remembered if you practice saying the words aloud.  If you say: una amica✗ you have to say the "a" sound twice— it glides along much better to just have one "a" sound: un'amica✓ so that's how you pronounce it and write it.

The masculine form UN doesn't have an extra vowel sound at the end, so you don't need to do anything special with words that begin with vowels:

un amico

a friend (that's a boy)

un anniversario

an anniversary

That's it!  Capito? (got it?)

Reinforce what you've learned with the Italian Basics digital workbook: (with easily printable pages!)

 —be the first to know about new lessons & worksheets! {Subscribe here!} 

Ready for the next lesson in this series?

(02) Definite Articles (How to say "THE" in Italian)

Potrebbe pure interessarti….

The Beginner's Italian Grammar Series, starting with:

How Italian Verbs Work

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