2 Unit 1 Masculine il padre il ristorante il sale il cognome father restaurant salt surname Feminine la madre la notte la luce la chiave mother night light key la televisione  [f] la pensione  [f] la produzione  [f] la stazione  [f] television pension production station To help you to determine the gender of some nouns ending in  -e , here is a rule: nouns ending in  -sione  or  -zione  are feminine: Sometimes, the gender of a noun ending in  -e  can be determined by the gender of the person it refers to: masculine when it refers to a male, feminine when it refers to a female: il / la cantante  [m/f] il / la cliente  [m/f] il / la parente  [m/f] l’inglese  [m/f] (male/female) singer (male/female) customer (male/female) relative Englishman/Englishwoman 5 Some nouns ending in  -a  and referring to persons are masculine when they refer to a male and feminine when they refer to a female:* il / la collega  [m/f] l’atleta  [m/f] il / la batterista  [m/f] il / la pianista  [m/f] (male/female) colleague (male/female) athlete (male/female) drummer (male/female) pianist * There are some exceptions: e.g.  la persona  (person) and  la guida  (tourist guide) are always feminine, even when they refer to a male, while the feminine of  il poeta  (poet) is  la poetessa . 6 There are some nouns ending in  -a  which are masculine and some nouns ending in  -o  which are feminine: Masculine il cinema il papà il problema cinema dad problem Feminine l’auto la foto la mano car photo hand