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Italian grammar A1: beginner

The complete guide from A1 to C1: the rules, examples to listen to, the usual mistakes.

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Level A1 covers the grammar of first exchanges in Italian: introducing yourself, naming and describing people and things, saying what you like, what you want, can or must do, talking about places and times, asking for a quantity, giving an instruction and saying what happened. The main features of Italian appear from the first sentences.

Nouns, articles and possessives

  • every noun is masculine or feminine, and the article and the adjective agree with it in gender and number;
  • the masculine has three definite articles, il, lo and l', whose form depends on the first letter of the next word;
  • the possessive is preceded by the article (la mia casa), except before a singular family noun (mio padre).

Verbs

  • the verb has a different ending for each of its six persons, so the subject pronoun is usually left out;
  • “to like” is usually expressed with piacere, whose subject is the thing liked (mi piace molto il mare);
  • the negative is formed with one word, non, and no auxiliary like English do;
  • one person is addressed politely with Lei and the third person singular;
  • the everyday past, the passato prossimo, is formed with an auxiliary, avere or essere, and a past participle.

  1. Introducing yourself

    The first sentences of a conversation are learnt as set phrases: Ciao, mi chiamo Marco, e tu?, Di dove sei?, Come stai?

  2. The present

    Italian has one present tense where English has several forms: lavoro means “I work” and “I am working”, lavori? “do you work?”, and non lavoro “I don’t work”.

  3. Want, can, must and the imperative

    The modal verbs volere (“to want”), potere (“can, to be able to”) and dovere (“must, to have to”), which Italian grammars also call verbi servili, are followed directly by an infinitive, with no preposition.

  4. The past

    At A1 the past is expressed mainly with the passato prossimo, the usual past tense of spoken Italian.

  5. Nouns and articles

    In Italian, every noun is masculine or feminine, things as well as people, and its ending often shows its gender.

  6. Adjectives

    An adjective agrees in gender and number with the noun it describes, whether it follows the noun directly or comes after essere, and it is usually placed after the noun.

  7. Possessives

    The possessive adjective agrees in gender and number with the noun that follows it, the thing owned, not with the owner, and it is usually preceded by the definite article: la mia casa.

  8. Quantity

    An unspecified quantity is expressed with the partitive article, formed from the preposition di and the definite article; a precise quantity is expressed with a noun of measure followed by di.

  9. Piacere

    “To like” is usually expressed with piacere (literally “to please”).

  10. Place and time

    “There is” and “there are” are c'è and ci sono.

  11. Questions and the negative

    The negative is a single word, non, placed before the verb, and a yes/no question is recognised by its rising intonation: Italian has no auxiliary like English do, and the subject and the verb do not change places.

  12. Linking sentences

    The conjunctions e, o and ma join two words or two sentences, like “and”, “or” and “but”.

Contents · Italian grammar