Occupations

You better work
The noun lavoro in Italian means both work and job.
Mio padre è al lavoro.
My father is at work.
Mia sorella ha un lavoro.
My sister has a job.
And it gets better! Lavoro is also the I form of the verb lavorare, to work.
Lavoro per loro.
I work for them.
And speaking of work, in Italian you can talk about people's professions by using the verb to be, like in English, but you can also use fare + a word like il, la, l', etc.
Lui è un avvocato.​
He is a lawyer.
Lui fa l’avvocato.​
He is a lawyer.
What's your job?
Generally speaking, Italian doesn't use gender‑neutral occupations terms as much as English does. Most of them end in ‑o in their masculine form, and in ‑a in their feminine form.
masculinefeminine
il poliziottola poliziotta
il segretariola segretaria
You will also notice that a lot of occupations end in ‑tore in the masculine, and in ‑trice in the feminine.
Mio marito è un ricercatore.
My husband is a researcher.
Conosco una ricercatrice.
I know a researcher.
Here are some more examples.
masculinefeminine
il pescatorela pescatrice
il direttorela direttrice
lo scrittorela scrittrice
Lui fa il pescatore.
He is a fisherman.
But there are a few exceptions to these patterns. For example, the feminine form of dottore is dottoressa.
The sounds of S
Like in English, the letter s in Italian has many different sounds.
segretario
segretario, settembre, sale (as in secretary)
misura
misura, rosa, uso (as in cousin)
There's no general rule for how s is pronounced, so keep your ears open when you see this letter.
As all double letters in Italian, double s always sounds longer and stronger.
dottoressa
dottoressa, rosso, posso (longer sound, as in close stop)

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