Ho un amico gentile.

I

Breakdown of Ho un amico gentile.

• avere: to have
• l'amico: the friend
• gentile: kind

Questions & Answers about Ho un amico gentile.

Why does the sentence start with Ho instead of something like Io ho?

In Italian, you often drop the subject pronoun (io, meaning I) because the verb form (ho) already indicates who is speaking. Saying Io ho un amico gentile isn’t wrong, but Ho un amico gentile is perfectly natural and more common in everyday speech.

Why is it un amico and not something like uno amico?

Un is the usual indefinite article for masculine nouns starting with a consonant. Uno is used before masculine nouns that begin with certain consonant clusters (like gn, ps, z) or s + consonant (e.g., uno studente). Since amico starts with a vowel sound, un is correct.

Why does the adjective gentile come after amico?

In Italian, it’s common for most adjectives to follow the noun. While some adjectives can appear before or after the noun (and occasionally the meaning changes slightly), generally descriptive adjectives such as gentile (kind/nice) follow the noun.

What if my friend is female—would it be un’amica gentile?

Exactly. For a female friend, you change amico to amica, and to maintain the correct article you’d use un’ because the next word starts with a vowel (amica). So the sentence would be Ho un’amica gentile.

Why is the H in Ho silent?

In Italian, H is always silent. You pronounce Ho like o, but in writing the H distinguishes it from o (the conjunction meaning or). So Ho (I have) is written with an H but pronounced simply as “o.”