In Italian, adjectives, articles and in some cases past participles have to ‘agree’ with the noun or pronoun they accompany or refer to. This means that their form varies according to whether the noun/pronoun is masculine or feminine (gender) and whether it is singular or plural (number): la casa bianca ‘the white house’; i miei sandali sono rotti ‘my sandals are broken’; loro sono andati ‘they went’