Italian Course Beginner Series Lesson 13: Indefinite Articles Video Lecture | Learn Italian Language: For Beginners and Travellers

welcome welcome to another video
tutorial my name is claudio and today we
do some indefinite articles in italian
so they are very easy let me guide you
um first of all do you know what an
indefinite article is if you don't know
let me give you a very quick example
when you say a word let's say dog it
doesn't really mean much so there's
always an article that goes along with
it and basically an article is this very
small particle that gives you the
definiteness
of the word that comes next so for
instance if I say feed cat that doesn't
mean anything but if I say feed the cat
then you know that because I use the
definite article the
you know what cat I have to feed oh well
we hope that you know what can't you
have to feed if I say feed a cat that
means feed a cat in general so when you
say a cat or a dog or an apple that is
indefinite when you say the cat that's
definite because you say you refer to a
cat that you've mentioned before so for
the purpose of this video and for the
sake of simplicity we will consider the
word sum as a plural indefinite article
because that's what he does in English
anyway I know it's not an article
technically speaking but that's what it
is that's what he does anyway a would be
the indefinite article the singular case
in English and the act as a both plural
and singular article so the cat the cats
you always use the word the okay now in
Italian let's say that we want to say
giraffe
so the word giraffe in Italian is jirafa
d Rafa it means giraffe and it's a
feminine word how do we know it's a
feminine word well because there is an A
at the end so if there is an A at the
end it means that the word is feminine
and basically ninety point three percent
of the Italian words now I'm kidding but
the biggest the largest majority of the
Italian words begin with the consonants
and end with a vowel think about all the
words you know Ferrari Pizza latte all
the words in Italian well not all of
them but most of them begin with a
consonant and end with a vowel this is
the case and we know that we have that
we are dealing with the feminine word so
if we are looking for something more if
we want to say a giraffe okay
a giraffe how do you say a giraffe in
Italian well this is where this table
comes handy basically this is all you
have to take away from this video this
table tells you what indefinite article
you have to use for each case so in this
case we're looking for an indefinite
article for a feminine word in the
singular case therefore we will use una
so a giraffe translates in una jirafa so
this is how you say a giraffe in Italian
what if we wanted to say some giraffes
so basically what if we want it to have
an indefinite article but the plural in
the plural case so how do you make a a
feminine word plural you basically
substitute the letter A with the letter
e giraffe there now this means giraffes
and we basically subbed in and we got
the plural version of the word in
English you would add an S okay in
general but here you swap the a with an
e now we're looking for a plural
indefinite article feminine therefore
we're looking for their lit they lit
giraffe it this means some giraffes okay
easy enough now let's try to make it a
little bit more tricky what if you
wanted to say an eagle now in Italian
Eagle is Aquila Aquila and as you can
see it begins with a vowel very strange
but it ends in a therefore we know it's
feminine word in fact the word eagle is
feminine now what if we wanted to say an
eagle so we need a singular feminine
indefinite article una well this would
be wrong not very wrong but a bit wrong
the reason for this is because because
the word in question begins with vowel
you basically get rid of the last vowel
in the article and you put an apostrophe
so this is what we do any reads une une
Aquila or Nakula or now cooler of course
you're really all at once so they kind
of link together
anak wheeler it's basically the same
concept of a dog and the Apple you add
an end because the word begins with a
vowel and that's exactly what you do you
get rid of a vowel because the word
begins with a vowel so this is how you
use the version in brackets that you see
here in here now what about this this is
the last thing that we have to talk
about there is a there is a
/ here what sir how do we know which one
to use
well the simple answer to this question
is used always own so the first one own
for instance the word baby is neonatal
neonatal and if you want to say one baby
a baby not one in particular not the
baby just a baby you say own neonatal
you always use own and even if it was a
word that began with the vowel for
instance friend friend is amico amico
and although it begins with a vowel we
don't care we always use own own amico
own amico
the only reason why you need owners and
times is for very special words these
special words are rare cases words that
begin with Z words that begin with X
which isn't an Italian letter anyway
words that begin with STR PN P s SC g n
and double vowel so these are very
strange cases these words are very
strange and they represent an exception
so here you go now you know everything
about indefinite articles in Italian and
as you can see in the sentence that
we've been working on for quite a while
we now understand everything about the
very last bit we know about this world
and we know why we get the article we
get ok guys I hope this video was
helpful I'll see you in the next one
take care