I know a lot of students studying Italian find this a bit difficult to understand so I thought I’d put this together to share on my blog:
When demonstrative pronouns questo (questa, questi, queste) and quello (quella, quelli, quelle) are followed by a noun, they turn into adjectives.
The Demonstrative adjective (aggetivi dimostrativi) are:
Singolare | Singular | Plurale |
Plural |
||
Masculine | questo | this | questi |
these |
|
Feminine | questa | this | queste |
these |
|
Masculine | quello | that | quelli |
those |
|
Feminine | quella | that | quelle |
those |
|
Masculine | codesto | that | codesti |
those |
|
Feminine | codesta | that | codeste |
those |
questo, questa, and quella before a noun beginning with a vowel takes an apostrophe. Examples:
o quest’aereo » this airplane
o quest’aula » this classroom
o quell’autostrada » that highway
Questa is sometimes shortened to “sta” and contracted with the noun it modifies:
o questa sera (this evening) » stasera (this evening)
Demonstratives agree in gender and number with the nouns they modify, and always precede them:
• Questo libro » this book
• Quella casa » that house