Tiscali: Italian Phrase Finder: Italian Grammar -adjectives

Adjectives

Adjectives normally follow the noun they describe in Italian,
e.g. la mela rossa (the red apple)

Some common exceptions which precede the noun are:

bello beautiful, breve short, brutto ugly, buono good, cattivo bad, giovane young, grande big, lungo long, nuovo new, piccolo small, vecchio old
e.g. una bella giornata (a beautiful day)

Italian adjectives have to reflect the gender of the noun they describe. To make an adjective feminine, an a replaces the o of the masculine, e.g. rosso - rossa. Adjectives ending in e, e.g. giovane, can be either masculine or feminine. The plural forms of the adjective change in the way described for nouns (above).

my, your, his, her

These words also depend on the gender and number of the noun they accompany, and not on the sex of the 'owner'.