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È un gatto.

È un gatto.
It is a cat.
From Lesson 1:Subject pronouns and the verb to be (io sono)·Italian

Questions & Answers about È un gatto.

Where is the word for 'it' in this sentence?
In Italian, you usually do not need to use a subject word like 'it', 'he', or 'I' because the verb itself shows who or what is doing the action. Here, è means 'is', and the 'it' is just understood from the context. This is known as the pro-drop rule.
Why does È have an accent mark?
The accent mark is very important because it changes the word's meaning entirely! È with the accent means 'is', which is a form of the verb essere (to be). Without the accent, e simply means 'and'.
Why do we use un for 'a' instead of una?
Because gatto is a masculine noun. You can usually tell a noun is masculine if it ends in -o. For masculine nouns that start with a regular consonant like 'g', we use the masculine indefinite article un.
Does un gatto only mean a male cat?
When talking about a cat in general, Italian defaults to the masculine form un gatto. However, if you specifically want to talk about a female cat, you would change the noun's ending and the article to make them feminine: una gatta.

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