Learn Italian: I mouse sono nuovi, ma i router sono vecchi. - The mice are new, but the routers are old.

I mouse sono nuovi, ma i router sono vecchi.

The mice are new, but the routers are old.

Breakdown of I mouse sono nuovi, ma i router sono vecchi.

Questions & Answers about I mouse sono nuovi, ma i router sono vecchi.

Why don't mouse and router change their endings in the plural?

In Italian, foreign loanwords (like mouse and router) are usually invariable. This means their spelling doesn't change in the plural. You just change the article to show there is more than one (from il to i).

Since mouse and router don't change form, how do we know they are masculine and plural?

The surrounding words give it away! We use the plural masculine article i and the plural masculine adjective endings (nuovi, vecchi). Foreign loanwords are usually assigned the masculine gender by default in Italian.

In English, the plural of "mouse" is "mice". Why isn't it "i mice" in Italian?

When Italian borrows a word from another language, it almost always takes the singular form and uses it for both singular and plural. So, Italians say i mouse rather than borrowing the irregular English plural.

Why do we use the article i for these words instead of gli?

Even though they are foreign words, the normal rules for definite articles still apply. Both mouse and router start with a standard single consonant sound. Therefore, they take the regular masculine plural article i. You would only use gli if the loanword started with a vowel, s + consonant, or z (like gli smartphone).