Italian and English differ in their usage of adjectives. Italian descriptive adjectives are usually placed after the noun they modify, and with which they agree in gender and number.

Adjectives ending in -o have four forms: masculine singular, masculine plural, feminine singular, and feminine plural. Observe how the adjectives nero and cattivo change to agree with nouns they modify.

Note that when an adjective modifies two nouns of different gender, it retains its masculine ending. For example: i padri e le madre italiani (Italian fathers and mothers).

Although the majority of Italian adjectives have four forms (as in italiano, italiana, italiani, italiane) there are exceptions. Not all Italian adjectives have a singular form ending in -o. There are a number of adjectives that end in -e. The singular ending -e changes to -i in the plural, whether the noun is masculine or feminine.

There are quite a few other exceptions for forming plural adjectives. For instance, adjectives that end in -io (with the stress falling on that i) form the plural with the ending -ii: addio/addii. leggio/leggii. zio/zii. The table below contains a chart of other irregular adjective endings you should know.