A2 · The noun
Plural spelling: -chi, -ghi
English respells to fit the -s; Italian respells to protect the sound.
At a glance
- Remember
- amici soft, amiche hard.
- Form
- il parco — i parchithe park — the parks
- Signal words
- -chi
- -ghi
- -che
- -ci
- -ce
- Trap
- Wrong:Le mie amice sono simpatiche.Right:Le mie amiche sono simpatiche.
Your turn
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The form
The forms and what they mean
Each row gives the meaning first, then the form in Italian.
| the park — the parks | il parco — i parchi |
| the lake — the lakes | il lago — i laghi |
| the friend — the friends | l’amico — gli amici |
| the friend (female) — the friends | l’amica — le amiche |
| the orange — the oranges | l’arancia — le arance |
| the son — the sons | il figlio — i figli |
The rules one by one
The form this topic is about
Feminine in -ca and -ga: always with h.
Le mie amiche sono simpatiche.My friends are nice.
Masculine in -co: usually with h, but amico and medico go soft.
I miei amici sono medici.My friends are doctors.
After a consonant the i of -cia drops.
Ho comprato due arance.I bought two oranges.
In -io only one i survives in the plural.
I figli sono già grandi.The sons are grown up already.
Example sentences
I parchi della città sono aperti fino alle otto.The city parks are open until eight.
Le amiche di mia sorella sono tedesche.My sister's friends are German.
Gli amici arrivano stasera.The friends are arriving this evening.
Vorrei un chilo di arance.I would like a kilo of oranges.
The trap English speakers fall into
Watch out
Masculine and feminine behave differently here, and the commonest pair shows it: l'amico gives gli amici with a soft sound, and l'amica gives le amiche with a hard one. Learn one and you will apply it to the other and be wrong — and English gives no help at all, since its own respellings never touch the pronunciation of the consonant.
The full explanation
Read it all · about 1 min
In -co and -go an h often appears so the hard sound survives: il parco → i parchi, il lago → i laghi.
Not always: l'amico → gli amici and il medico → i medici go soft. There is a rule of thumb — stress on the second-to-last syllable keeps it hard — with enough exceptions that the common words are learnt one by one.
In -ca and -ga it is unambiguous: always with h. l'amica → le amiche, la riga → le righe. In -cia and -gia the i drops when a consonant comes before it: l'arancia → le arance. With a vowel before it, it stays: la camicia → le camicie. And in -io with an unstressed i, only one i remains: il figlio → i figli.
English does respell in the plural too — city becomes cities, potato becomes potatoes, knife becomes knives — but for a different reason: those changes exist to accommodate the -s that is arriving. Italian is not accommodating anything; it is defending the consonant against the vowel that has just replaced the old one. Once you see that, the h stops looking decorative.
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