Learn Italian: Il ferro è un metallo pesante.

Il ferro è un metallo pesante.

Iron is a heavy metal.

Breakdown of Il ferro è un metallo pesante.

Questions & Answers about Il ferro è un metallo pesante.

Why is it Il ferro and not just ferro?

In Italian, when you are talking about a broad category, a substance, or a general concept, you usually need to include the definite article. Since we are talking about iron in general, it translates to il ferro.

This lesson is about using di for materials. Why isn't there a di before ferro here?

You use di when describing what an object is made of, like un tavolo di ferro (an iron table). In this sentence, iron is the main subject being talked about, not a description of another object, so we just use its normal noun form.

Pesante ends in an 'e'. Does it change if we describe a feminine word?

No, it stays exactly the same. Adjectives that end in -e in the singular form are used for both masculine and feminine nouns. They only change to an -i if the noun is plural.

Why is it un metallo and not uno metallo?

Metallo is a masculine word starting with a standard consonant (m). You only use uno for masculine words that start with an 's' followed by another consonant (like studente), or a 'z', 'ps', 'gn', or 'y'. For everything else, you just use un.