How do you say TALL in Italian?

How exactly do you say tall in Italian?

In this lesson, we will take a look at the different words you can use to talk about being tall in Italian. Read on to learn all you need to know!

Alto
Tall

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Tall in Italian

Alto

Alto is how you translate tall in Italian when we talk about buildings, numbers, people, and heights in general. Let’s hear how this adjective is pronounced.

Its pronunciation is similar to alt-oh and it comes from the Latin word altum, “high”. Make sure the final -o has a clean sound, because Italian vowel sounds are clean!

Alto
Tall

man placing a package on top of a wardrobe

Like all other adjectives in Italian, alto needs to match the noun in both gender and number.

SingularPlural
MasculineAltoAlti
FeminineAltaAlte

If a building is short, you will say alto because building, edificio, is a masculine noun in Italian.

Likewise, if you’re talking about a tall woman, donna, which is a feminine noun, you will say alta.

Plural nouns behave the same way: if you want to describe three tall skyscrapers, grattacieli (masculine plural), use alti. If you’re talking about a group of three tall female players playing basketball, giocatrici (feminine plural), use alte instead.

Title: Italian All-in-One For Dummies
Language: English / Italian
Publisher: For Dummies
Pages: 672

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For example, you could say…

Il cavallo bianco è più alto di quello nero.
The white horse is taller than the black one.

Non ci sono molti edifici alti in questa zona.
There aren’t many tall buildings in this area.

Quanto è alta la Torre Eiffel?
How tall is the Eiffel Tower?

the eiffel tower

High or tall?

There’s no difference between high and tall in Italian since both adjectives are translated as alto.

You would never think of a number or a price tag as being tall, and you would never think of a man as being high. However, there’s no such distinction in Italian.

L’auto della polizia viaggiava ad alta velocità.
The police car was driving at a very high speed.

Sto assumendo un farmaco contro la pressione alta.
I am taking medication for high blood pressure.

Il prezzo di questa maglietta è troppo alto.
The price of this T-shirt is too high.

worried woman looking at the price of an item

Synonyms for alto in Italian

Instead of alto, you can say…

Elevato
High, elevated

Grande
Big

Lungo
Long

For example, you could say…

La fibra ottica permette velocità di navigazione molto elevate.
Fiber optics allow very high surfing speeds.

Il mio studio si trova in quel grande edificio laggiù.
My studio is in that big building over there.

And that’s the end of our lesson on how to say tall in Italian!


What next?

Now that you’ve seen how to say tall in Italian, you might want to keep learning Italian online with these free Italian resources:

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