Learn Italian: Le olive sono verdi o nere. - Olives are green or black.

Le olive sono verdi o nere.

Olives are green or black.

Breakdown of Le olive sono verdi o nere.

Questions & Answers about Le olive sono verdi o nere.

Why does the Italian sentence use Le olive instead of just Olive?

In Italian, you need to use a definite article (like il, la, i, or le) when talking about a general category or all things of a certain type. Since the sentence makes a general statement about all olives, it uses the feminine plural article Le.

Why does verdi end in -i if it describes a feminine plural word like olive?

The adjective for green is verde. Adjectives that end in -e in the singular are exactly the same for both masculine and feminine words. When making them plural, they always change to -i. So, it becomes verdi here regardless of gender.

Then why does nere end in -e instead of -i like verdi?

The word for black is nero, which is an adjective that has four different endings based on gender and number (-o, -a, -i, -e). Because olive is feminine plural, nero takes the feminine plural ending and becomes nere.

If the plural is le olive, is the singular la oliva?