The 50 Most Common Italian Adjectives
Looking to become more conversational and effectively tackle a lot of new vocabulary? Check out our post on the 50 Most Common Adjectives in Italian below. If you would like some help working on them, feel free to get some help with one of our award-winning online instructors.
As in any language, adjectives in Italian are a crucial part of communication. To learn to speak naturally, like a native speaker, it is imperative to not only learn the basics, but to really absorb how native speakers use and manipulate their languages, and one of the main ways is by the use of adjectives. Italian is a Romance language from the Indo-European group of languages, and its current form originated out of the vulgar Latin that was spoken throughout the Roman Empire. It is the least divergent modern tongue, along with Sardinian, from the original Latin form.
Adjectives in Italian (with a few exceptions) come after the noun they are describing and can be divided into three forms:
- Descriptive – Most common, and the endings change based on the number and gender of the noun being modified (eg. masculine singular -nuevo masculine plural – nuevi, feminine singular – nueva, feminine plural – nueve
- Invariable – These are adjectives whose endings do not change (eg.
- Form-changing – These are adjectives that change to a different spelling when placed in front of their nouns. There are 4 such form changing adjectives in Italian: buono, bello, grande and santo
OUR LIST OF THE 50 MOST COMMON ADJECTIVES IN ITALIAN BELOW:
| 1 | altro | other |
| 2 | primo | first |
| 3 | grande | big |
| 4 | dritto | straight |
| 5 | nuovo | new |
| 6 | possibile | possible |
| 7 | generale | general |
| 8 | presente | present |
| 9 | vero | reall |
| 10 | italiano | italian |
| 11 | politico | political |
| 12 | maggiore | greater/major |
| 13 | nazionale | national |
| 14 | civile | civil |
| 15 | necessario | necessary |
| 16 | lungo | long |
| 17 | pubblico | public |
| 18 | tale | such |
| 19 | comune | common |
| 20 | forte | strong |
| 21 | importante | important |
| 22 | naturale | natural |
| 23 | buono | good |
| 24 | breve | short |
| 25 | particolare | particular |
| 26 | economico | economic |
| 27 | ultimo | last |
| 28 | morale | moral |
| 29 | difficile | difficult |
| 30 | unico | only |
| 31 | umano | human |
| 32 | internazionale | international |
| 33 | evidente | obvious |
| 34 | diverso | different |
| 35 | culturale | cultural |
| 36 | noto | known |
| 37 | centrale | central |
| 38 | facile | easy |
| 39 | reale | real |
| 40 | principale | main |
| 41 | precendente | previous |
| 42 | militare | military |
| 43 | utile | useful |
| 44 | personale | personal |
| 45 | piccolo | small |
| 46 | chiaro | clear |
| 47 | grave | serious |
| 48 | fondamentale | fundamental |
| 49 | pieno | full |
| 50 | antico | ancient |
SOME OTHER GREAT WAYS TO IMPROVE YOUR VOCABULARY:
- Watch Netflix in Original language with original language captions
- Check out a great book like this: 2500 most frequently used Italian words
- Do some quick daily exercises on DuoLingo or any other free language learning app
- Take some classes with us at Strømmen and speak to a real human in person or online
