Learn Italian: Suo marito è un uomo severo. - Her husband is a strict man.

In Italian, you usually put a definite article (like il or la) before a possessive word. But there is a special rule for singular family members! Because marito (husband) is a singular family member, it drops the article and just uses suo.

Since suo means both his and her, how do we know it means her husband here?

Without more context, it could actually mean either his or her husband! In Italian, the possessive word (suo) matches the gender of the person being talked about (marito, which is masculine), not the gender of the person who is married to him. We only know it means her here from the English translation or surrounding conversation.

Why does the adjective severo come after uomo?

In English, we put the adjective first and say strict man. But in Italian, descriptive adjectives like severo (strict) almost always come right after the noun they are describing.

Why use un instead of uno or un' before uomo?

Uomo is a masculine noun. The article uno is only for masculine words starting with tricky sounds like z or s plus a consonant. For all other masculine words, even those starting with a vowel like uomo, you just use un. Remember, masculine words never take an apostrophe!