Talking about friends and family is basic vocabulary you should learn early in any language-learning journey.
Here's what you need to know in Italian to speak about your family (la famiglia).
Words for Your Family in Italian
As with any new topic in a foreign language, you should start by arming yourself with the necessary vocabulary.
Once you have the vocabulary, you can move on to the grammar required. Still, it's almost impossible to practise the grammar without having words to insert into practice sentences.
With that in mind, here are some essential words to use when discussing your family.
Your Immediate Family in Italian
By immediate family, we mean family members within a single generation who are directly related to you through no other person.
This would include the following family members. This includes both singular and then plural forms:
- Father – (il) padre, (i) padre
- Mother – (la) madre, (le) made
- Brother (il) fratello, (i) fratelli
- Sister – (la) sorella, (le) sorelli
- Son – (il) figlio, (i) figli
- Daughter – (la) figlia, (le) figle
Extended Family Members in Italian
Here, we're including family members you're related to via another person. Don't worry if your family's very close and these family members hardly belong in the "extended" category, as we have some excellent vocabulary later in the article to refer to family members endearingly.
Here are the Italian words for extended family members. As usual, we've included singular and then plural forms:
- Grandfather – (il) nonno, (i) nonni
- Grandmother – (la) nonna, (le) nonne
- Uncle – (lo) zio, (gli) zii
- Aunt – (la) zia, (le) zie
- Cousin (male) – (il) cugino, (i) cugini
- Cousin (female) – (la) cugina, (le) cugine
- Grandson – (il) nipote, (i) nipoti
- Granddaughter – (la) nipote, (le) nipoti
You might also want to learn the alphabet in Italian to spell the names of family members.
How to Pronounce Family Members in Italian
Here's a quick pronunciation guide to all the family vocabulary and a few bonus words.
| English | Italian Singular | Pronunciation (Singular) | Italian Plural | Pronunciation (Plural) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Parent | (il) genitore | [jen-ee-TOH-reh] | (i) genitori | [jen-ee-TOH-ree] |
| Mother | (la) madre | [MAH-dreh] | (le) madri | [MAH-dree] |
| Mum/Mom | (la) mamma | [MAHM-mah] | (le) mamme | [MAHM-meh] |
| Father | (il) padre | [PAH-dreh] | (i) padri | [PAH-dree] |
| Dad | (il) papà | [pah-PAH] | (i) papà | [pah-PAH] |
| Son | (il) figlio | [FEEL-yoh] | (i) figli | [FEEL-yee] |
| Daughter | (la) figlia | [FEEL-yah] | (le) figlie | [FEEL-yeh] |
| Brother | (il) fratello | [frah-TELL-loh] | (i) fratelli | [frah-TELL-lee] |
| Sister | (la) sorella | [soh-REL-lah] | (le) sorelle | [soh-REL-leh] |
| Grandfather | (il) nonno | [NON-noh] | (i) nonni | [NON-nee] |
| Grandmother | (la) nonna | [NON-nah] | (le) nonne | [NON-neh] |
| Grandson | (il) nipote | [nee-POH-teh] | (i) nipoti | [nee-POH-tee] |
| Granddaughter | (la) nipote | [nee-POH-teh] | (le) nipoti | [nee-POH-tee] |
| Uncle | (lo) zio | [TSEE-oh] | (gli) zii | [TSEE-ee] |
| Aunt | (la) zia | [TSEE-ah] | (le) zie | [TSEE-eh] |
| Nephew | (il) nipote | [nee-POH-teh] | (i) nipoti | [nee-POH-tee] |
| Niece | (la) nipote | [nee-POH-teh] | (le) nipoti | [nee-POH-tee] |
| Cousin (m) | (il) cugino | [koo-JEE-noh] | (i) cugini | [koo-JEE-nee] |
| Cousin (f) | (la) cugina | [koo-JEE-nah] | (le) cugine | [koo-JEE-neh] |
| Husband | (il) marito | [mah-REE-toh] | (i) mariti | [mah-REE-tee] |
| Wife | (la) moglie | [MOH-lyeh] | (le) mogli | [MOH-lyee] |
| Relative | (il/la) parente | [pah-REN-teh] | (i/le) parenti | [pah-REN-tee] |
| Family | (la) famiglia | [fah-MEEL-yah] | (le) famiglie | [fah-MEEL-yeh] |
Don't forget that our pronunciation guide is to help you, but it's simply an approximation for speakers of English. The best way to learn how to pronounce the words in Italian is to listen to examples of them, both in isolation and when used in sentences, and practise yourself.
When talking about family members, you might want to mention their age. For this, you'll need to learn numbers in Italian.
You'll have noticed that before each word in our table, we've put "il," "la," "i," "gli," or "le." These all relate to grammatical gender in Italian, and you'll need to learn about it before you can really talk about your family members.
Grammatical Gender in Italian
Nouns belong to one of two groups in many languages, including Romance languages like Italian, French, Spanish, and Portuguese. These groups are masculine and feminine, but don't worry too much about the terminology. All this means is that every noun is one of these two noun types.
Look up any noun in an Italian dictionary. It'll tell you whether the noun is masculine (maschile) or feminine (femminile). For example, the word for book (libro) is masculine, and the word for house (casa) is feminine.
Articles in Italian
Before learning any vocabulary for family members, you must know about grammatical gender. This means that when you use these words, you must use the appropriate article. In English, these articles are "a" and "the" (the indefinite and definite articles).
In Italian, the indefinite article is either "un" or "una," depending on whether the noun is masculine or feminine.
The definite article is "il" or "la" for masculine and feminine nouns.
So we're done, right?
Not quite.
There are also plurals. We've only covered singular nouns (a book, a house, the book, the house, etc.). In the plural, you also have masculine and feminine articles.
These are "i" and "gli" for masculine nouns. The "gli" is for words that begin with vowels, certain special letters, and the silent letter "h". For plural feminine nouns, the definite article is “le”.
You can talk about what you do with your family using the most useful verbs in Italian.
Adjectives in Italian
Grammatical gender doesn't affect the article used before the noun, either. Adjectives, which can come before or after a noun depending on their use, are also affected by grammatical gender.
Adjectives Ending in -o
Certain groups of adjectives (but not all) will change their ending according to the noun they're describing. Adjectives that end in “-o” will change as follows:
Masculine Singular: -o
- Example: "bello" (beautiful)
- "Un uomo bello" (A beautiful man)
Feminine Singular: -a
- Example: "bella" (beautiful)
- "Una donna bella" (A beautiful woman)
Masculine Plural: -i
- Example: "belli" (beautiful)
- "Uomini belli" (Beautiful men)
Feminine Plural: -e
- Example: "belle" (beautiful)
- "Donne belle" (Beautiful women)
Adjectives Ending in -e
Adjectives that end in -e follow slightly different rules. Rather than change according to singular and plural, masculine and feminine, they only change according to singular and plural.
For both masculine and feminine singular nouns, keep the -e ending.
- "Un maglione arancione" (An orange sweater)
- "Una maglietta arancione" (An orange T-shirt)
For plural nouns, the adjective changes its ending to an -i.
- "Maglioni arancioni" (Orange sweaters)
- "Magliette arancioni" (Orange T-shirts)
You've seen that we've included the definite article in our vocabulary list. We find this more useful than simply labelling the nouns as masculine or feminine, as it'll help you associate the articles with the vocabulary and ultimately understand grammatical gender slightly better.
Don't worry if you don't get it immediately, though. Grammatical gender can cause problems for English speakers in many different languages.
Adjectives Ending in -a
Adjectives that end in -a follow the same rules as adjectives that end in -e. They take -i for plurals but keep the -a ending for singular nouns.
Here's a handy table summarising all the rules.
| Adjective Type | Masculine Singular | Feminine Singular | Masculine Plural | Feminine Plural |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Ending in -o | -o | -a | -i | -e |
| Ending in -e | -e | -e | -i | -i |
| Ending in -a | -a | -a | -i | -i |
Using Diminutives in Italian to Talk about Your Family
Now that you have the vocabulary and the grammar to start describing family members, let's look at friendly ways to address family members.
This is particularly important if you have Italian family members. Your partner might have Italian heritage or even be Italian. In this instance, you should learn how to affectionately refer to Italian family members!
With around 4.36% of Australians having Italian heritage, nearly 1 in 20 Australians will likely have an Italian family member.
Don't forget your family member's birthdays! You should also learn how to say the days and months in Italian.
Grammatically speaking, you can convey endearment or smallness by modifying nouns. In Italian, there are several suffixes you can use depending on the noun.
There are several diminutive suffixes in Italian, including:
- -ino
- -ina
- -ini
- -ine
- -etto
- -etta
- -etti
- -ette
- -uccio
- -uccia
- -ucci
- -ucce
These suffixes are often used with nouns in Italian for family members to indicate closeness. In the same way English uses -y or -ie for words like "granny" or "auntie" to indicate closeness, many of these can be used in Italian.
For example:
- Daddy - papino, paparino, papi
- Mommy - mammina, mami
- Grandpa - nonnino (m.)
- Granny - nonnina (f.)
- Auntie - zietta
- Sis/Little sister - sorellina
- Brother - fratellino
- Cousin - cuginetta (f.), cuginetto (m.)
Other Words to Describe Your Family in Italian
Now that you have the vocabulary for family members and the rules for adjectives in Italian, you should be able to describe family members according to physical traits or their personality with the right words. You can use Italian words for colours to describe their clothes, house, etc.
There are also family-specific adjectives that you can use to refer to the marital status of family members or reconstructed families.
Here are some of the adjectives you could use. Since these aren't nouns, we'll use (m.) and (f.) to indicate the masculine and feminine forms as we can't use articles with them:
- Adoptive – Singular: adottivo (m.), adottiva (f.). Plural: addotive (m.), addotivi (f.)
- Divorced – Singular: divorziato (m.), divorziata (f.). Plural: divorziati (m.), divorziate (f.)
- Separated – Singular: separato (m.), separata (f.). Plural: separati (m.), separate (f.)
- Single – Single (in all forms)
- Step... – Singular: acquisito (m.), acquisita (f.). Plural: acquisiti (m.), acquitie (f.)
Improve Your Italian with a Private Tutor
Italian can be tricky; since everybody learns differently, it can be challenging to teach everybody similarly.
This is why private tutors are beneficial when teaching foreign languages like Italian.
They can tailor every session to the student, ensuring that they learn what they need to know in a way that works for them.
To find qualified and experienced private Italian tutors, search the Superprof website. Enter "Italian" and your location, and you can start browsing the profiles of potential tutors.
Many offer the first session for free, so you can try a few before you decide which one is right for you.
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