Learn Italian: Questa casa è grande.

Questa means this and it must match the gender of the noun it describes. Because casa (house) is a feminine word, we use the feminine form Questa. If the noun were masculine, like libro (book), we would use Questo.

Since casa is feminine, why doesn't the adjective grande change to end in -a?

While many Italian adjectives end in -o for masculine and -a for feminine, grande belongs to a special group of adjectives that naturally end in -e in the singular. These words do not change for gender, so grande stays exactly the same whether it describes a feminine word like casa or a masculine word.

Why is there an accent mark on the word è?

The accent mark is very important because it shows that è means is. If you leave the accent mark off, the word e simply means and.

Does the word Questa always go before the noun?

Yes! Words like questo and questa are used to point out specific things, and they always go directly in front of the noun they describe. This is a bit different from regular describing words (like colors), which usually come after the noun in Italian.