Preposizioni Semplici di (d) a da in con su per tra, fra Examples: Vive a Roma. (She lives in Rome.

) Laereo arriva da Londra. (The airplane arrives from London.) Abita in California. (He lives in California.) Parlo con Andrea. (Im talking with Andrea.) I libri sono su un banco. (The books are on a desk.) La penna tra i quaderni. (The pen is between the notebooks.) La chiamata per Teresa. (The call is for Teresa.) The preposition di expresses possession as well as place of origin: Di chi questa rivista? di Lucia. Whose magazine is this?Its Lucias. Di dov James? di Miami. Where is James from? Hes from Miami. The English to and in are translated by the Italian preposition a when used with the name of a city or a small island. Vado a Venezia. (I am going to Venice.) Abitano a Venezia. (They live in Venice.) Vanno a Capri. (They are going to Capri.) Abitano a Ischia. (They live in Ischia.)
"il"-"lo" are the definite article that corresponds to masculine nouns. Examples:

of, from at, to, in from, by in with on for between

il professore the teacher. il telefono the phone. il vecchio zio the old uncle.

la is the definite article that corresponds to feminine nouns. Examples:

la casa the house. la tavola the table. la finestra the window.

When using nouns, you must make sure that you use the correct gender and number when using an identifier. The identifiers are il, lo, la, i, gli, le, un, uno and una. Il, lo and la are singular definite articles, which means you are talking about a specific thing. Examples:

La sedia the chair (you are talking about a specific chair) Il telefono verde The telephone is green. La parete brutta The wall is ugly.

The use of these identifiers is identical to the way you would say it in English - if you want to say "a table", use una, and if you want to say "the table", use la. "i" and "gli" are the plural of "il" and "lo", and "le" is the plural of "la". You use these plural definite articles when you are talking about several specific members of a group. There are no plural forms of uno and una, and to translate "some" when used in sentences, one must use indeterminate pronouns. Examples

Le stanze sono grandi The rooms are big. Delle sedie sono in cucina Some chairs are in the kitchen. Gli stessi ragazzi the same boys Dei tavoli some tables. lo-LO: is used for all masculine nouns beginning with s+consonant or z. il-IL: is used for all masculine nouns starting in a consonant, except the case where you use "lo". la-LA: is used with feminine nouns starting with any consonant l-L: This is the elision of lo or la is used before masculine or femenine nouns beginning with a vowel.

Examples: o zucchero the sugar lo zio the uncle il castello the castle la scatola the box il vecchio zio the old uncle l'impatto the impact (masculine) l'acqua the water (feminine)

For plural nouns:

gli-GLI: It is used whith masculine nouns starting with vowels, the consonant z , cluster gn or clusters made of s+consonant. i-I: It is used whith masculine nouns starting with consonants which do not belong to the previous case: le-LE: It is used before any plural feminine noun

Examples: gli artisti the artists le ali the wings i cavalli the horses gli elefanti the elephants i ragazzi the boys gli stessi ragazzi the same boys

The Italian indefinite article (l'articolo indeterminativo) corresponds to English a/an and is used with singular nouns. It also corresponds to the number one.

When the noun to which the article applies is a masculine noun then "a/an" can be translated as "un", or "uno", if the article applies to a feminine noun then the article that has to be used is "una". As the definite articles, there are some rules to understand the use of these articles:

uno-UNO: It is used for masculine words beginning with z or s + consonant. un-UN: It is used for all other masculine words, except the cases where you have to use "UNO" una-UNA: it is used with feminine nouns starting with any consonant. un'-UN': It is the elision of una, used when feminine nouns start with any vowel.

un treno e una bicicletta un aeroplano e unautomobile uno stadio e una stazione Examples:

A train and a bicycle An airplane and a car One(an) stage and one(a) station

When plural nouns are indefinite, they simply do not use an article, or they use the partitive form: i.e. cats (no article) or some cats (partitive), coins or some coins (partitive), etc. Partitive will be dealt with further on, so for the time being simply disregard its use. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 uno due tre quattro cinque sei sette otto nove dieci 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 undici dodici tredici quattordici quindici sedici diciassette diciotto diciannove venti 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 ventuno ventidue ventitr ventiquattro venticinque ventisei ventisette ventotto ventinove trenta 31 32 33 40 50 60 70 80 90 100 trentuno trentadue trentatr quaranta cinquanta sessanta settanta ottanta novanta cento

Su/sopra = on In/dentro= in

vicino= near

sotto=under

dietro=behind

davanti=in front lontano= far