Professions in Italian
What job do you do? Learn how to talk about professions in Italian.
Italian nouns relating to professions don’t follow an easy rule relating their ending to the gender of the person. Sometimes they change and sometimes they don't. My tip is just to learn the words and endings for the professions you are going to use the most. Don't worry, the rest will come! [if you missed the post about the gender of Italian nouns, head here!]
What is your job?
In Italian you have two options to ask someone about their profession:
Che lavoro fai? (informal)
Che lavoro fa? (formal)
How to answer
1. Faccio il fotografo / la fotografa (Verb “fare” + definite article)
2. Sono un fotografo / una fotografa (Verb “essere” + indefinite article)
3. Lavoro come fotografo / fotografa (“I work as” + profession)
The three options above are interchangeable and can be used in any situation.
Le professioni
TIP - notice how some patterns tend to repeat!
1. Masculine professions ending in -tore always have their feminine counterpart in – trice.
attore – attrice
pittore – pittrice
scrittore – scrittrice
2. Professions ending in -ista never change from masculine to feminine, however the article does. That is how you can recognise if we are talking about a man or a woman.
il dentista (m) – la dentista (f)
il farmacista (m) – la farmacista (f)
il giornalista (m) – la giornalista (f)
NOW IT’S TIME TO PUT IN PRACTICE WHAT YOU HAVE JUST LEARNT!
Write your profession in the comments using one of the sentence structures presented above in the "How to answer" section.
I will answer and check your Italian! :)