How much

How do you say how much in Italian?

There are two ways to say how much in Italian.

This is because Italian has two genders, masculine and feminine, and because how much is translated not as an expression but as an adjective.

All Italian adjectives must agree with the gender and the number of the noun they are linked to, so this means that there’s a masculine and a feminine translation for how much in Italian.

Masculine nouns: Quanto

Use quanto with masculine nouns to say how much in Italian.

Quanto
How much (masculine)

Quanto denaro ti serve?
How much money do you need?

Quanto riso vuoi?
How much rice do you want?

bowl of rice almost filled to the brim

Riso, for example, the word for “rice”, is masculine, and so is denaro, “money”.

These objects must be uncountable, such as flour, time, butter, water. You cannot use quanto in front of countable nouns. You can’t use how much in front of English countable nouns either, if you think about it. That’s what how many is for, but we’ll see the translation(s) for that expression another time.

Let’s focus on quanto for now. Quanto can serve as an adjective or a pronuon.

In the first case, it will always come before the object, unlike normal adjectives in Italian which commonly come after it. This is why we’ll say quanto riso, and not “riso quanto”.

In case it’s used as a pronoun, it will simply replace the noun itself, but you will still need to differentiate between its masculine and feminine form. You can’t replace a feminine object with quanto, because that’s used for masculine nouns only.


How much in Italian: Examples

Quanto tempo abbiamo per finire il lavoro?
How much time do we have to finish the job?

Quanto latte bevi al giorno?
How much milk do you drink daily?

Sai quanto ho sempre desiderato andare in Australia.
You know how much I’ve always wanted to go to Australia.

Non importa quanto mangio, non ingrasso mai.
No matter how much I eat, I never get fat.

very skinny young man with a grey jacket on

Just as in English, how much in Italian is also used to ask for the price of something with the expression quanto costa…? or quanto costano…? depending on whether the object is singular or plural (gender has no influence here).

Quanto costa?
How much does it cost?

Quanto costano?
How much do these cost?

Quanto costa questa giacca?
How much is this jacket?

Quanto costano questi libri?
How much are these books?

For example, you can say…

Quanto costa questa cravatta?
How much is this tie?

Non so quanto costa questa moto.
I don’t know how much this motorcycle is.

Quanto costano i biglietti?
How much are the tickets?

happy woman who just purchased an online ticket

Feminine nouns: Quanta

Use quanta with feminine nouns to say how much in Italian.

Quanta
How much (feminine)

Quanta acqua contiene questa bottiglia?
How much water does this bottle hold?

Quanta farina ci vuole per fare la torta?
How much flour do you need to make the cake?

flour package with yellow polka dots

Quanta is used in front of feminine objects. Farina, for example, the word for “flour”, is feminine, and so is acqua, “water”.

Yet again, all nouns following quanta must be uncountable, so they will always be in their singular form.

Differently from quanto, quanta cannot be used as an adverb expressing a generic quantity before a verb, as in how much do you eat?. Remember this example from the previous paragraphs:

Non importa quanto mangio, non ingrasso mai.
No matter how much I eat, I never get fat.

You can’t say non importa QUANTA mangio. This is wrong!

Let’s make a few other examples with quanta now.

Quanta erba mangiano le mucche?
How much grass do cows eat?

Ho visto quanta pasta hai preparato… Dobbiamo sfamare un esercito?
I saw how much pasta you made… Do we have to feed an army?

Quanta acqua bisogna bere in estate?
How much water should you drink in summer?

kid drinking a glass of water

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