I am not aware of any particular logic in why a word is feminine or masculine (a stupid answer might be: because in Latin you had feminine, masculine and neutral, the you have the question: why in Latin is a person masculine, feminine or neutral gender ... :-) The impications of a word being femine or masculine (or neutral) is that articles, adjectives and some forms of verb (ex. participio passato) must "agree" in gender (and number). Ex. La mela matura è caduta. (feminine singular) I fichi maturi sono caduti (masculine plural) There are exceptions that may surprise the student, sometimes that is due to the word being neuter in latin: il dito, le dita, il ginocchio le ginocchia il fucile i fucili la paralisi, le paralisi la forbice - le fobici NB meaning changes, they're like two different words

In italiano female words usually are finished with "a", and male words are finished with " o". There are some exceptions, that are should be remembered. For example, "foto", " canzone" are female. They are exceptions :)