{"id":3571,"date":"2013-07-03T14:00:00","date_gmt":"2013-07-03T14:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/italian\/?p=3571"},"modified":"2013-07-03T14:57:09","modified_gmt":"2013-07-03T14:57:09","slug":"le-professionipart-1","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/italian\/le-professionipart-1\/","title":{"rendered":"Le Professioni–Part 1"},"content":{"rendered":"

Recently Geoff wrote an article about Luciano Lutring, \u201cil solista del mitra\u201d <\/strong>(the machine gun soloist). We had a comment from a reader asking why, in the title \u201cil solista del mitra\u201d <\/strong>we use the article il<\/strong> (masc. sing.) rather than la<\/strong> (fem. sing.), since the word solista<\/strong> ends in \u2013a, which is the typical ending for female words. Well, yes, one of the first rules that a student of Italian learns is that words ending in \u2018a\u2019<\/strong> are feminine singular, and those in \u2018o\u2019<\/strong> are masculine singular, but, as usual, in Italian we have hundreds of exceptions to the rule, and \u201cil solista\u201d <\/strong>is a typical example. In this article I\u2019m going to look at nouns which describe professions, starting of course with those ending in \u2018-ista\u2019<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

1. Words ending in \u2018\u2013ista\u2019<\/strong><\/font><\/font><\/u><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n\n
\"FARMACISTA\"<\/a><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
\n

In the advert above note that even though the picture shows a female chemist the masculine \u2018il tuo farmacista\u2019 is used. This is because when we speak generically about a profession we use the masculine form.<\/em><\/font><\/strong><\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

There are many nouns referring to professions which end in \u2018\u2013ista\u2019<\/strong>, e.g. dentista<\/strong> (dentist), musicista<\/strong> (musician), farmacista<\/strong> (pharmacist), regista<\/strong> (film director), stilista<\/strong> (fashion designer), e cos\u00ec via<\/strong> (and so on). In their singular form these words do not change ending, we can only tell by the article il,<\/strong> la, un,<\/strong> or una<\/strong> if they are referring to a man or a woman, e.g. Carlo fa il<\/u> farmacista<\/strong> (Carlo works as a pharmacist: masculine singular), Giovanna fa la<\/u> farmacista<\/strong> (Giovanna works as a pharmacist; feminine singular); Giorgio Armani \u00e8 un<\/u> famoso stilista italiano<\/strong> (Giorgio Armani is a famous Italian fashion designer; masculine singular), Prada \u00e8 una<\/u> famosa stilista italiana <\/strong>(Prada is a famous Italian fashion designer; feminine singular).<\/p>\n

In the plural, however nouns ending in \u2013ista<\/strong> behave regularly, hence we have \u2013isti<\/strong> (masculine plural), and \u2013iste<\/strong> (feminine plural), e.g. Carlo e Mario fanno i farmacisti<\/u><\/strong> (Carlo and Mario work as pharmacists; masculine plural), Giovanna e Lucia fanno le farmaciste<\/u><\/strong> (Giovanna and Lucia work as pharmacists; feminine plural); Giorgio Armani e Roberto Cavalli sono dei famosi stilisti<\/u> italiani <\/strong>(Giorgio Armani and Roberto Cavalli are famous Italian fashion designers; masculine plural), Prada e Biagiotti sono delle famose stiliste<\/u> italiane<\/strong> (Prada and Biagiotti are famous Italian fashion designers; feminine plural).<\/p>\n

2. Words ending in \u2018\u2013nte\u2019<\/strong><\/font><\/font><\/u><\/em><\/p>\n

Another group of words describing professions are those ending in \u2013nte<\/strong>, <\/strong> and these are present participles of their accompanying verbs, e.g. cantante<\/strong> (singer, from cantare<\/strong> = to sing), insegnante<\/strong> (teacher, from insegnare<\/strong> = to teach), commerciante<\/strong> (merchant, dealer, from commerciare<\/strong> = to trade, to deal). These nouns do not change from masculine to feminine either in the singular or in the plural, but you need to change the article and the adjective accordingly, e.g. Giorgio \u00e8 un bravo<\/u> insegnante<\/strong> (Giorgio is a good teacher; masculine singular), Luisa \u00e8 una brava<\/u> insegnante<\/strong> (Luisa is a good teacher; feminine singular); Giorgio e Paolo sono dei bravi<\/u> insegnanti<\/strong> (Giorgio and Paolo are good teachers; masculine plural), Luisa e Carla sono delle brave<\/u> insegnanti<\/strong> (Luisa and Carla are good teachers; feminine plural).<\/p>\n

N.B. studente<\/strong> (student) is irregular as it is only used for the masculine singular, whilst the feminine singular is studentessa<\/strong>, e.g. Mario \u00e8 uno studente preparato<\/strong> (Mario is a well prepared student), Maria \u00e8 una studentessa preparata<\/strong> (Maria is a well prepared student). The plural form becomes studenti<\/strong> (masculine), and studentesse<\/strong> (feminine).<\/p>\n

In part 2 we\u2019ll take a look at professions ending in \u2018\u2013ere\u2019, e.g. cameriere (waiter), \u2018\u2013tore\u2019, e.g. scrittore (writer), and at some \u201cmodern\u201d female professions which cause a lot of confusion because no one\u2019s quite sure which form to use!<\/font><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\"\"

Recently Geoff wrote an article about Luciano Lutring, \u201cil solista del mitra\u201d (the machine gun soloist). We had a comment from a reader asking why, in the title \u201cil solista del mitra\u201d we use the article il (masc. sing.) rather than la (fem. sing.), since the word solista ends in \u2013a, which is the typical…<\/p>\n

Continue Reading<\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"author":19,"featured_media":3589,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"content-type":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[292047,292048],"class_list":["post-3571","post","type-post","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-grammar","tag-italian-masculine-words-ending-in-a","tag-italian-words-describing-professions"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/italian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3571","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/italian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/italian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/italian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/19"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/italian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3571"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/italian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3571\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3590,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/italian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3571\/revisions\/3590"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/italian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3589"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/italian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3571"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/italian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3571"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/italian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3571"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}