Learn Italian: I poemi che abbiamo letto sono molto famosi. - The epic poems that we read are very famous.

I poemi che abbiamo letto sono molto famosi.

The epic poems that we read are very famous.

Breakdown of I poemi che abbiamo letto sono molto famosi.

Questions & Answers about I poemi che abbiamo letto sono molto famosi.

Why does the word poemi take the masculine article i if the singular ends in "-a"?

The singular form is il poema. It belongs to a special group of masculine nouns that come from Greek and end in "-ma" (like il problema or il sistema). Because it is masculine, its plural ending changes to "-i", making it i poemi.

Does poema mean the same thing as a regular "poem" in English?

Not exactly! A poema usually refers to a long, epic poem, like the Odyssey or Dante's Divine Comedy. If you want to talk about a standard, shorter poem, you would use the feminine noun la poesia (plural: le poesie).

Since i poemi is plural, why doesn't the past participle change to match it, like abbiamo letti?

When a verb uses avere as its helping verb (like abbiamo), the past participle (letto) stays in its default "-o" form. It doesn't agree with the noun i poemi here. It would only change to letti if you used a direct object pronoun before the verb, as in li abbiamo letti (we read them).

Notice how famosi ends in "-i". Does this confirm the gender of poemi?