Since irregular indefinite articles do not follow any rule, they have to be learned by heart.

Example: una mano. The indefinite article una is used with femininenouns. You can recognize female nouns in the singular on the shelf by their ending - a. In this case the noun ''mano'' (= hand) ends with a - o, which would normally indicate a masculine noun in the singular. However, "un mano'' would be wrong and "una mano"correct. As you can see, the learned rule does not apply here and another rule cannot be determined.

However, there are a few rules here that can help you determine.

NOTE:

ending -ione:
➔ Nouns with ending - ione are feminine (e.g. una lezione, una stazone ➔ delle stazioni).

ending -ista:
➔ Nouns with the ending - ista are male and female (e.g. un / una dent ista).

ending consonant
➔ Nouns that end with a consonant are masculine. Consonants are the letters: B, C, D, F, G, H, J, K, L, M, N, P, Q, R, S, ß, T, V, W, X , Z. (e.g. un ba r).

Greek origin with ending -a:
➔ Nouns with Greek origin and the ending - a are masculine (e.g. un tem a).

un cinema
un tema
un problema
un sapone
un colore
un giornale
un dentista
un giornalista
un bar
un tram
un cane
un dolce
un papà


una lezione
una colazione
una regione
una stazione
una canzone
una dentista
una giornalista
una città
una crisi
una mano