Family and Friends - Describing Relationships

Family and friends in Italian

To talk about your family and friends in Italian you need the vocabulary, a few describing words like simpatico (nice) and arrabbiato (angry), and the possessives for my and your. Italian has a neat rule for my: normally you say il mio or la mia, keeping the word for the, but for a single family member you drop it, so it is mio padre, not il mio padre.

Words for the family

Learn each noun WITH its article: il or la tells you its gender.

il or la

Every Italian noun is masculine or feminine, and the article shows which. Most masculine nouns end in -o and most feminine in -a, but learn each with its article to be safe.

Match the Italian to the English

Getting on

Marco says: vado d'accordo con mia sorella. What does the phrase andare d'accordo mean?

• to get on well with someone
• to argue with someone
• to live with someone
• to look like someone

Saying my with family

For my, Italian normally uses il mio (masculine) or la mia (feminine), keeping the word for the. But with a single family member you drop it: mio padre, mia madre, mio fratello, mia sorella. In the plural the article comes back: i miei fratelli (my brothers) and le mie sorelle (my sisters).

Match the possessive to its meaning

Correct Italian?

Select the TWO phrases that are correct Italian for a single family member.

• mio padre
• mia madre
• il mio padre
• la mia madre

Build the sentence

Put the words in order to make the Italian for This is my brother.

• Questo
• è
• mio
• fratello

Italian keeps the article English drops

The family words become sentences with ho (I have) and è (is). Watch the little words in front of the nouns, because they change with gender: - Ho un fratello e una sorella = "I have a brother and a sister". fratello is masculine so it takes un; sorella is feminine so it takes una. The same word "a" in English, two different words in Italian. - La mia famiglia è grande = "my family is big". Italian keeps la in front of mia where English would just say "my". famiglia is feminine, so it is la mia rather than il mio.

The word for "a" changes with the gender of the noun

The word for "a" changes with the gender of the noun. Which of these says "I have a brother and a sister"?

• Ho un fratello e una sorella
• Ho una fratello e un sorella
• Ho un fratello e un sorella
• La mia famiglia è grande

Complete the Italian

For a single family member Italian drops the article. My father is _____ padre and my mother is _____ madre. Your father is _____ padre and your mother is _____ madre. His or her mother is _____ madre.

Italian possessives

Tap the TWO statements that are TRUE.

• For a single family member, Italian drops the possessive article, as in mia madre.
• In the plural, the article comes back, as in i miei fratelli.
• il padre is a feminine noun.
• mio padre should be written as il mio padre.
• la sorella means brother.

Article or not?

Choose the correct Italian each time. Remember the single-family-member rule.

• You want to say my father, a single family member. Which is correct?
• You want to say my brothers, in the plural. Which is correct?
• You want to say my friend. The word amico is not a family member. Which is correct?

Explain the rule

In English, explain the Italian rule for saying my with family members, and give three correct Italian examples. This is written in English and is not auto-marked.

• Explain the normal form with the article (il mio, la mia)
• Explain the exception for a single family member (drop the article)
• Explain what happens in the plural
• Give three correct Italian examples with their English meaning