I don’t know!

How do you say I don’t know in Italian?

Non (lo) so

Non lo so is the closest translation of I don’t know in Italian and literally means “I don’t know it”.

Unlike English, it uses the direct object pronoun “it”. There is also a version without the pronoun, non so, but it’s perceived as a bit informal and uncaring, so it’s not as commonly used.

So is the first-person singular conjugation of sapere, to know, in the present tense. Sapere is one of the four Italian modal verbs and it’s also an irregular verb.

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Non ne ho idea

This is another common translation for I don’t know in Italian, and it’s used when you want to emphasize that you don’t know something. It literally translates to “I don’t have any idea about it”.

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Non ne ho la più pallida idea

If you want to emphasize even further that you don’t know something in Italian, you can use non ne ho la più pallida idea, which translates to I don’t have the slightest idea.

Pallida means pale, while the particle ne once again means about it.

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Boh!

Don’t use boh in formal situations, because it’s a very informal (and very popular) way of saying I don’t know in Italian! It’s an exclamation and it has no literal translation into English.

It’s usually accompanied by a hand movement: palms up, as in the following picture!

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Che ne so!

Che ne so is another colloquial way of saying I don’t know in Italian. Again, don’t use it in formal settings. It can be perceived as rude even among friends because it conveys impatience.

In its variant che cavolo ne so!, it can be translated very closely to the English expression the hell if I know!.

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A saperlo! / Magari lo sapessi!

A saperlo and magari lo sapessi are two less common ways of saying I don’t know in Italian, but they are different from the expressions we’ve seen so far. They convey a need to know what you don’t know, similar to I wish I knew.

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