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Giulia asks Alex about his family.
A masculine plural covers a mixed group, so i fratelli can mean the brothers or the brothers and sisters, i figli means the sons or simply the children, and i nonni means the grandfathers or both grandparents together. Context settles it, and Hai fratelli? is the ordinary way to ask about siblings of any kind. Italian drops the article before a job: Mia madre è insegnante, not è un'insegnante. The same goes for sono studente, è medico. Put the article back only when you add a describing word — è un bravo medico. l'insegnante works for a man or a woman and only the article changes: l'insegnante is ambiguous, but un insegnante and un'insegnante are not. Il medico stays masculine even for a woman, though la dottoressa is widely used. zio and zia have a hard dz sound at the front, not the ts of grazie. Listen for it.
How do I read these pronunciations? See the pronunciation guide.
1. avere — to have
The second verb every learner needs, and irregular: io ho, tu hai, lui/lei ha, noi abbiamo, voi avete, loro hanno. The h is silent in every form — ho sounds like the o in ora, and ha like the a in casa. It is there purely to keep those forms apart in writing from o meaning or and a meaning to. Beyond possession, avere does ages (ho ventidue anni), hunger and thirst (ho fame, ho sete) and heat and cold (ho freddo) — all places English uses to be.
2. My family, without the article
Italian normally puts the article in front of a possessive: il mio libro, la mia casa. Family is the exception — a single family member in the singular drops it: mio padre, mia madre, tua sorella, suo fratello. The exception is narrow, and it switches off the moment anything changes. Plural brings the article back (i miei fratelli, le mie sorelle), and so does an affectionate or describing word: la mia sorellina, il mio fratello maggiore. Learn mio padre and i miei genitori as a pair and the rule takes care of itself.
3. Making plurals
Italian does not add -s. It changes the final vowel. Nouns in -o go to -i: un fratello, due fratelli. Nouns in -a go to -e: una sorella, due sorelle. Nouns in -e go to -i whatever their gender: un padre, due padri; una madre, due madri. Words ending in an accented vowel or a consonant do not change at all, and only the article shows the number: il caffè, i caffè; l'autobus, gli autobus. That last group is why lo sport and il film look wrong in the plural and are not.
4. quanti and quante
How many agrees with what is being counted: quanti for masculine things, quante for feminine. Quanti fratelli hai? Quante sorelle hai? For how much, use the singular quanto or quanta: Quanto costa? Quanta acqua? And the fixed question for age is Quanti anni hai? — literally how many years do you have, which is why the answer uses avere and not essere.
A. Fill in the Blank · Completa
Fill in the blank with the correct form.
- 1. una sorella e due fratelli.I have (avere)
- 2. fratelli o sorelle?do you have (avere)
- 3. madre è insegnante.my (feminine, before a family member)
- 4. anni ha?how many (masculine)
B. Multiple Choice · Scegli
Choose the correct Italian.
- 1.Which is the io form of avere?
- 2.Which is "my mother"?
- 3.Which is "my grandparents"?
- 4.What is the plural of sorella?
C. Word Order · Metti in ordine
Put the words in the right order.
- 1.Tap tiles below…
- 2.Tap tiles below…
- 3.Tap tiles below…
- 4.Tap tiles below…
D. True or False · Vero o falso
Decide whether each statement about the dialogue is true.
- 1.Alex has three siblings.
- 2.Giulia has two sisters.
- 3.Chiara lives in Bologna.
- 4.Giulia's father is a doctor.
E. Matching · Abbina
Match each question to the answer that fits it.
F. Translation · Traduci
Translate between Italian and English.
- 1.I have one sister and two brothers.
- 2.My mother is a teacher.
- 3.Quanti anni ha?
- 4.I miei nonni abitano in campagna.
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Why nobody is in a hurry to move out
Italians leave home later than almost anyone in Europe — around thirty on average, against roughly twenty-four in France and twenty-one in Sweden. The affectionate-insulting word mammone, mummy's boy, gets thrown at young men who stay, but the causes are mostly economic rather than emotional: youth unemployment has been high for two decades, short-term contracts make renting hard, and university students overwhelmingly attend somewhere within reach of home. The family absorbs what the state does not. Grandparents are the country's real childcare system, often collecting grandchildren from school daily, and it is normal for three generations to eat together every Sunday — il pranzo della domenica is a fixture that outranks most other plans. There is a demographic sting in the tail. Italy has one of the lowest birth rates in the world, around 1.2 children per woman, and a population that has been shrinking since 2014. So the large Italian family of the stereotype is mostly a memory: today's typical household is small, and the aunts, uncles and cousins that fill this lesson's vocabulary are more likely to be your parents' generation than your own.