Learn Italian: I pesci sono piccoli e neri. - The fish are small and black.

In English, the word "fish" looks the same whether it is singular or plural. In Italian, this noun belongs to a class of words that end in -e in the singular (il pesce) and change to -i in the plural (i pesci). Since we are talking about multiple fish, we use the plural form pesci.

How do I know the gender of pesce since it ends in -e instead of -o or -a?

Nouns ending in -e can be either masculine or feminine, so you usually have to memorize their gender when you learn the word. But here, the rest of the sentence gives it away! The masculine plural article i and the masculine plural describing words piccoli and neri tell you that pesce is a masculine noun.

Why use i for the word "the" instead of gli?

Both i and gli are plural words for "the" used with masculine nouns. You use gli before vowels and tricky starting sounds like z or an s followed by another consonant. Because pesci starts with a normal consonant (p), we use the standard plural article i (which is the plural form of il).

Why do the adjectives and both end in ?