ITALIAN ADJECTIVES: WHAT THEY ARE AND HOW TO USE THEM
Mmm well, if you’re here it means that you’re searching for an explanation about another topic of Italian grammar!
Fortunately, you’re in the right place. Be ready to improve your Italian vocabulary too.
But if you’ve chosen to learn Italian, you are ready to improve, above all, your Italian pronunciation!
First of all, today we are talking about Italian adjectives!
What is an adjective? In Italian grammar, like in other languages, an adjective is word that describes someone or something.
In addition, in its translation into Italian, the adjective stands for AGGETTIVO, a difficult word to pronounce because it includes two “Gs and “Ts not common in other languages.
Secondly, there are two types of adjectives.
ITALIAN ADJECTIVES | Qualifiers (qualificativi) and Indicative / Definite adjectives (indicativi / determinativi).
The qualifying adjective indicates and describes the quality of a noun, for example:
Martina è molto bella / Martina is very beautiful / pretty
On the other hand, the definite adjective determines several aspects of the noun to which it refers, not just qualifying aspects.
But wait…
In order to provide a clear explanation of the definite adjective, we need to do an Italian adjectives list, very useful for remembering all the adjective types that exist in this field:
| the possessive adjective | mio, nostro / mine, ours |
| the demonstrative adjective | questo, quello / this, that |
| the indefinite adjective | nessuno, tutti, qualcuno / nobody, everybody, somebody |
| the numeral adjective | cardinals: uno, due, / one, two; ordinals: secondo, terzo /second, third |
| the interrogative and exclamatory adjective | Quale? Quanti? Che bello! Che sfortuna! / What? How many? How beautiful! What a bad luck! |
Moreover, depending on its role in the sentence, an adjective in Italian can also be:
| attributive | Luca ha una bella maglia / Luca has a nice shirt |
| predicative | I gelati sono buoni / Ice creams are tasty |
| adverbial | La tartaruga si muove lentamente/ The turtle moves slowly |
And now, let’s think about an adjective that we might associate with Italy: wonderful? Historical? Magical?
Well, if you think about how many kinds of Italian adjectives exist to describe a person or a place or a feeling, you will be dismayed by the majesty of the words!
Did you think it ended here? Well, sorry but you’re wrong!
There are many things to learn about Italian grammar, including a couple more about adjectives.
Specifically, Italian describing words, in this case the qualifying adjectives, can be also distinguished in:
| grado positivo (positive degree) | it refers to a quality, e.g. – alto / tall |
| grado comparativo (comparative degree) | it compares two elements, e.g., più alto / taller |
| grado superlativo (superlative degree) | it refers to the highest degree of quality, e.g., il più alto / the tallest |
Finally, there are also other aspects of adjectives to be analysed but we believe in the philosophy of “slow and steady wins the race”!
Here is another in-depth study:
https://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aggettivo
Discover other topics by visiting the grammar section:
https://italianlesson.it/how-to/
Here is a video for an in-depth look at adjectives
Happy Italian language learning, and don’t forget to add new words to your Italian vocabulary!