Question 1

What is the difference between è and e in this sentence?

Accepted Answer

è with an accent mark means "is" (from the verb for "to be"). e without an accent mark is the joining word "and". The accent is very important because it completely changes the meaning, and you will hear a slight difference in pronunciation, too!

Question 2

Both grande and cattivo describe the dog, so why do they have different endings?

Accepted Answer

Italian has two main types of adjectives. cattivo belongs to the group that ends in -o for masculine words and -a for feminine words. Since cane (dog) is masculine, we use cattivo. grande, however, belongs to a group of adjectives that end in -e for both masculine and feminine singular words.

Question 3

The word cane ends in -e. How can we tell it's a masculine word?

Accepted Answer

You often have to memorize the gender of words ending in -e. However, looking at the other words in this sentence gives it away! The word Questo (This) and the adjective cattivo (bad) both end in -o, which tells us that cane must be a masculine noun.

Question 4

How would this sentence change if we were talking about two big, bad dogs?

Accepted Answer

Everything describing the dogs would change to the plural form: Questi cani sono grandi e cattivi. Notice how the joining word e (and) stays exactly the same, because conjunctions never change their endings to match nouns.

Questo cane è grande e cattivo.

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