More on 'bello'

Bello is a special Italian adjective for more than one reason. We explored the first reason in our last post, when we said that bello belongs to a set of adjectives that can precede nouns.

Another interesting feature is that, from the point of view of meaning, bello mainly means 'pretty, beautiful' but in certain contexts it can be used to mean 'big, great'.

Consider the following examples:

(1) Maria e' una bella ragazza

(2) Vincere il Nobel e' una bella soddisfazione

Only in (1) 'bella' means 'pretty', whilst in (2) the satisfaction of course is not 'beautiful' but 'great'.
A last thing to notice is related to the particular behaviour of this adjective when it agrees in gender and number with the noun it precedes. You can make yourself an idea considering this pattern:

(1) Maria e' una bella ragazza vs Maria e' una ragazza bella

(2)Mario e' un bel ragazzo vs Mario e' un ragazzo bello

(3) Carlo e Maria sono dei bei bambini vs Carlo e Maria sono dei bambini belli

(4) Carla e Maria sono delle belle bambine Carla e Maria sono delle bambine belle

(5) Ho comprato un bello zaino vs Ho comprato uno zaino bello

(6) Ho comprato dei begli zaini vs Ho comprato degli zaini belli

(7) Giovanni e' un bell'uomo vs Giovanni e' un uomo bello

As you can see, the pattern of the endings of bello is different depending on the position of the adjective. If it follows the noun, the pattern is the one expected for any other adjective ending in -o. In the case the adjective precedes the noun, however, the pattern of endings reproduces the one typical of determinative articles (i, lo, la, i, gli, le, l').