Italian Indefinite Articles (un, una)

Level: A1. The indefinite article is the Italian for “a / an”. There are four forms, and the one you use depends on gender and on the very next sound.

The rule

An indefinite article points to one unspecified thing (“a book”, “an apple”). Italian nouns have a gender — masculine or feminine — and the article must match it. Within each gender, the choice depends on the sound that starts the following word.

• Masculine — un: the default, before most consonants and before any vowel. un libro (a book), un amico (a friend). Note: no apostrophe before the vowel.
• Masculine — uno: before the awkward clusters s + consonant (called s impura), and z, gn, ps, pn, x, y, or i + vowel. uno studente (a student), uno zaino (a backpack), uno psicologo (a psychologist).
• Feminine — una: before any consonant. una casa (a house), una donna (a woman).
• Feminine — un’: before a vowel, where una drops its -a and takes an apostrophe. un’amica (a female friend), un’ora (an hour).

The four forms

Example sentences

Common mistakes

• ❌ un’amico → ✅ un amico. The masculine form never takes an apostrophe, even before a vowel.
• ❌ un studente → ✅ uno studente. A masculine word starting with s + consonant needs uno.
• ❌ una amica → ✅ un’amica. Before a vowel the feminine una must elide to un’.
• ❌ uno libro → ✅ un libro. A plain consonant takes un, not uno.
• ❌ un ora → ✅ un’ora. ora is feminine and begins with a vowel, so it takes un’ with the apostrophe.

A short conversation

— Buongiorno, vorrei un caffè e una brioche. (Good morning, I’d like a coffee and a pastry.) — Certo. Desidera anche **un’**acqua? (Of course. Would you also like a water?) — Sì, e uno spuntino, grazie. (Yes, and a snack, thanks.)

Usage notes

• S impura and friends. The uno / un’ forms exist to make clusters easier to pronounce. The same words take lo and l’ as definite articles (lo studente, l’amica).
• Agreement with what follows. The article matches the first word after it, so un grande problema but un’altra idea once a vowel comes first.
• No plural “a/an”. For “some”, Italian uses the partitive: dei libri (some books), degli studenti, delle case.

Compared with…

• Definite articles (il, lo, la, l’ and plurals) follow the same sound-based logic: lo and l’ line up with uno and un’. Review them in the Italian grammar section.

How to say it

Italian spelling is regular once you know a few sounds in this lesson’s words:

• c and g before e or i are soft: caffè has a hard “k”, but gelato and cinema give “j” and “ch” sounds.
• gn (as in gnomo) is the “ny” sound in canyon, one smooth sound, not g-then-n.
• Double consonants (caffè, macchina) are held longer than single ones — a real difference in meaning, so lean on them.

Quick recap before the quiz.

Practice

Quiz

Recap cheat-sheet

Next

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