Indefinite articles

As in English, only singular forms exist:

• UNO (masculine, singular) it is used in the same cases which require the definite article lo is used (see above):

uno zio (an uncle) uno sconto (a discount) uno steccato (a fence)

• UN (masculine, singular) it is used in the same cases which require the definite articles il and masculine l' (see above):

un bottone (a button) un osso (a bone) un soldato (a soldier) un amico (a friend) un gioco (a game) un uccello (a bird)

• UNA (feminine, singular) it is used with nouns starting with any consonant:

una scala (a ladder) una torcia (a torch) una zucca (a pumpkin)

• UN' (feminine, singular) it is the elision of una, used when nouns start with any vowel. The apostrophe "binds" the article to the following letter, both in spelling (no space) and in pronounciation, as for the l' article above:

un'anima (pronounced "wnahnymah", a soul) un'elica (pronounced "wnehlykah", a propeller) un'orma (pronounced "wnohrmah", a footprint)

The full spelling una is also accepted when the following noun starts with i: i.e. un'importante scoperta (an important discovery) may sometimes be spelled una importante scoperta, but this happens rather seldom, so simply stick to the general rule.

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. Summarising this (apparently) difficult scheme, the following table will make articles much more easy to memorize:

DEFINITE ARTICLES

INDEFINITE ARTICLES

(matching noun starts with...)		masculine singular	feminine singular	masculine plural	feminine plural		masculin singular	feminine singular
Z or S+consonant		lo	la	gli	le		uno	una
any other consonant		il	la	i	le		un	una
vowels		l'	l'	gli	le		un	un'

The article's gender and number is very important because, as already explained in paragraph 2.1 and paragraph 2.2, the noun's inflection alone might not always clearly tell whether the gender is masculine or feminine, singular or plural:

libro (masculine)	book		ape (feminine sing.)	bee
il libro	the book		l'ape	the bee
un libro	a book		un'ape	a bee
porte (feminine pl.)	doors		ospiti (masculine)	guests
le porte	the doors		gli ospiti	the guests
mano (fem. sing., irregular)	hand		atleta (masc., non-standard)	athlete
la mano	the hand		l'atleta	the athlete
una mano	a hand		un atleta	an athlete
gesta (fem. pl., irregular)	human acts, deeds		gesti (masculine)	gestures
le gesta	the acts, the deeds		i gesti	the gestures

The importance of matching the article with the noun is even greater when the latter have the same inflection for singular and plural form, as foreign or truncated nouns (see paragraph 2.2), because in these cases whether the noun is singular or plural can be told only by the article:

computer (masculine)	computer		computer (or computers)	computers
il computer	the computer		i computer (or i computers)	the computers
un computer	a computer
età (feminine)	age		età	ages
l'età	the age		le età	the ages
un'età	an age