Why do you say "il mio gatto" but not "la mia madre" in Italian?
Carlotta Cerri
–
Fondatrice de La Tela
2 settembre 2009·13 commenti
This is one of those things in the Italian language that either you’re a native speaker or you’ll struggle with.
Sometimes, native people use grammar rules correctly without even knowing they’re grammar rules—they just come natural to them. To answer this question, I myself had to look it up in my old grammar books.
And the answer was easier than I thought:
In a grammatically correct Italian you always have to say “the” (il, la, gli, le) before a possessive adjective like my, your, his, her (mio, tuo, suo…) or you’ll end up sounding like Tarzan.
Sometimes, native people use grammar rules correctly without even knowing they’re grammar rules—they just come natural to them. To answer this question, I myself had to look it up in my old grammar books.
And the answer was easier than I thought:
In a grammatically correct Italian you always have to say “the” (il, la, gli, le) before a possessive adjective like my, your, his, her (mio, tuo, suo…) or you’ll end up sounding like Tarzan.
Let's see an example:
- Tarzan would say: "mio gatto mangiare crocchette" (notice that there's no "the" before mio). This is wrong ✖️
- A native Italian would say: "IL mio gatto mangia crocchette". This is correct ✔️
Exception
But this is Italian we’re talking about, it can’t be that easy! There are exceptions, of course: mother is one of those. The other ones are:
- Padre (father)
- Fratello/Sorella (brother/sister)
- Zio/Zia (uncle/aunt)
- Nonno/Nonna (grandmother/grandfather)
- Nipote (niece/nephew)
- Cugino/Cugina (cousin)
- Marito/Moglie (husband/wife)
- Figlio/Figlia (son/daughter)
- Suocero/Suocera (mother-in-law/father-in-law)
- Genero/Nuora (son-in-law/daughter-in-law)
- Cognato/Cognata (brother-in-law/sister-in-law)
So really, all family names used in their singular form are exceptions and DO NOT want “the” (il, la) before.
- Mio nonno ✔️
- IL mio nonno ✖️
- Mia madre ✔️
- LA mia madre ✖️
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Scritto da
Carlotta Cerri
– Fondatrice de La Tela
Sono la fondatrice de La Tela, creatrice del podcast Educare con calma e dal 2019 viaggio a tempo pieno con la mia famiglia Alex, Oliver ed Emily. Mi ritengo una visionaria pessimista: so come voglio cambiare l’educazione e che genitore ho scelto di essere, ma la maggior parte dei giorni mi sembra di scalare pareti di vetro. Ma forse proprio per questo so come aiutarti quando mi scrivi: perché ci passo anche io per quel disagio e ti dico le verità scomode con gentilezza e senza giudizio.