How would you explain to a bunch of twelve-year old British school children who have never encountered grammatical gender that objects, ideas, animals and countries in many European languages can either be masculine, feminine or, as in German, neutral? I can assure you that this one of the very first obstacles that puts them off learning foreign languages and maybe the well known (but not always justified) genetic incapability of English-speaking people to learn a second idiom stems from here. Blame it on the “gender issue” if foreign tourists visiting our country ask for things or start a conversation in their own language. Why should they worry themselves whether the cappuccino they are ordering is masculine or feminine, or whether it would be better to call it “il” or “lo” cappuccino.
If you have ever taken lessons in French, Italian, Spanish or even Portuguese, then you would have surely had to go through the enormous effort of trying to remember the gender of words.
One of the very first observations I used to make when I was a secondary school teacher in the UK was: “There is no apparent reason to explain why different people have historically assigned a feminine gender to the apple (la mela) and a masculine gender to the lemon (il limone) or have decided that the fat, round potato is la patata (feminine) in Italian and that the skinny asparagus stalk, l'asparago, is masculine – sometimes I wonder if Freud had any opinion on this)....
If there was an intrinsic reason for genders then why is the moon masculine in German, and feminine in Italian and French, and on the same note why is the sun feminine in German and masculine in French and Italian? Who is right? Who are the people holding the key to its solution?
Those learning the Italian language have it easier than those who courageously embark on learning German: there are only two choices in choosing Italian gender: a 50% chance of making a mistake. There are, however, a few simple and useful rules when trying to take a shot at it, and remembering if a word is masculine or feminine.
Rule 1
You might well have been taught to recognize the gender of the word from its ending. It is thus easy to deduce that words ending in “o” such as: duomo (cathedral) , castello (castle) , palazzo (palace), museo (museum) are masculine and, on the other hand, that those ending in “a” like piazza, strada, casa are feminine.
But do remember: there are a few exceptions: words ending in “o” like mano (hand) can also be feminine (fortunately there are very few of them) and words ending in a like problema, schema, teorema are masculine (the way to recognise them is to remember that they derive from the Greek).
I can assure you that many times I have heard in final year oral examinations, where students are asked to comment on newspaper articles on Italian politics, the sentence “La problema dell' Italia è che....” (the problem is that ...), precisely the sort of mistake which prevented the unfortunate student – who so very unluckily chose to begin his sentence with the word problema, from getting top marks.
I also have to admit that as a native Italian speaker working in a British university I had to remain poker-faced when a fellow college professor, even with published papers and articles under his belt, made the same mistake, treating the word problema as feminine: “Allora, qual è, secondo te, la problema economica maggiore dell'Italia contemporanea? (So, what do you think is the major economical problem for contemporary Italy?). A sentence which, if nothing more, could well cause a lot of confusion for the poor student being tested who probably spent the rest of the examination period questioning his own superior knowledge of gender exceptions.
Rule 2
The biggest nightmare for all students of Italian surely concerns words ending in e. There might well be some among readers who have spent sleepless nights – well ...let’s get real, perhaps just given a little thought to the problem – and still have not arrived at a conclusion as to whether words like fiume (river), ponte (bridge), televisione (TV), pensione (small hotel) are masculine or feminine.
If it happens that one late evening, wondering around in Florence near Piazza della Signoria after one or two aperitivi, somewhat unsure of your bearings, you find yourself asking where the Old Bridge (Ponte Vecchio) or the river Arno ( fiume Arno) are, and start exploring the question in your mind as to what gender to attribute to these two words think no more: both are masculine, il fiume and il ponte. So, next time remember that the right question to ask is: “Dove è il fiume Arno?” or “Dove è il ponte Vecchio”(Where is the river Arno, or where is the Old Bridge?).
There is also an easy rule to remember for words ending in ione, like stazione, televisione: they are all feminine. So, if it ever happens that in the middle of your Florentine Saturday shopping spree in Via Tornabuoni you are stopped by a group of foreign looking people (with that unmistakeable German accent), eager to show that they too can speak the language, and they throw you the question “Scusi, dove è il stazione? (after all, an easy mistake for a German to make, given that in the German language the word ‘station’ is masculine) you may politely correct them by saying “Ah” La stazione!!! E a destra, poi a sinistra”. Then you may smile, and congratulate yourself because you have certainly learnt the rule for the ione words.
Rule 3
We will end this brief lesson with accented words ending in é, such as caffè, tè. Could coffee, this famous and popular Italian drink, possibly be feminine? Definitely not! Accented words ending in è are always masculine. On the other hand, accented words ending in à (università, città) are all feminine.
So, after reading this article, no more excuses! If in the future you find yourself sitting in a cafè in Piazza della Repubblica in Florence or Piazza Navona, Rome and a waiter approaches you, do not even for one minute think of giving him a chance to show off his English. Order un caffè lungo or macchiato or espresso or, if you feel very nostalgic and want to feel at home, un tè caldo or freddo, and then surprise him by saying: “Firenze (or Roma) è una bellissima città !!
