Lesson Transcript

Hi guys, welcome back with ItalianPod101.com. My name is Desy and in this video, we're gonna talk about quantifiers.
Indicatori di quantità, "quantifiers."
As in English, there is a difference between countable and uncountable nouns. So for example, as in "how much sugar do you want in your coffee?" we say:
Quanto zucchero vuoi nel caffè?
So 'quanto' is like 'how much'. Just be careful though because in Italian it changes depending on the noun. So even though the noun is uncountable, it still has a shot so it could be male or female.
Male as in 'zucchero', so 'quanto zucchero'. If it's female like 'pasta' for example, 'quanta pasta':
Quanta pasta mangi in una settimana? in one week, for example. If you're Italian, you would say a lot but we're gonna get there.
Quanto tempo abbiamo? "How much time do we have?"
It's a question so you want to change the intonation.
Meanwhile, for countable names, we have 'quanti' or 'quante' because here too it depends on the genre, right?
'quanti' is actually just the plural of 'quanto' so it all makes sense, right?
Quanti cucchiaini di zucchero vuoi?
So to take the same example as before just with a different noun not 'how much sugar' but 'how many spoons of sugar do you want in your coffee?'
Quanti cucchiaini di zucchero vuoi nel caffè?
While if I ask you:
Quante sorelle hai? "How many sisters do you have?"
Because 'sorella' is female, so is 'sorelle' the plural form: 'quante sorelle'. And we covered the question for the answer.
Let's assume you eat a lot of pasta cause you're Italian so you say:
Mangio molta pasta.
You see here too 'molta' and with 'a' because 'pasta' also ends with 'a'.
Mangio molta pasta. "I eat a lot of pasta." not countable, right? Uncountable.
While:
Mangio molte mele. "I eat a lot of apples."
And also if you just want to say 'he eats a lot' you don't have to add anything.
Lui mangia molto.
Lui mangia molta pasta.
Lui mangia molto zucchero.
In the same way, you can also use 'tanto'.
Lui mangia tanto zucchero.
Lui mangia tante mele.
It's interchangeable: 'molto' and 'tanto' you can use it as you prefer.
My tip is to use 'tanto' because if you cannot pronounce 'molto' in a perfect way you may be misunderstood and if you say 'morto' it means dead. So yeah, 'molto', 'tanto', 'a lot off'.
While, if you wanna say 'too much' so not only 'tanto' but 'too much' you don't say 'tanto molto' or 'molto tanto'. It becomes 'troppo', 'troppo':
Lui mangia troppe mele. "He eats too many apples."
Lui mangia troppa pasta. "He eats too much pasta."
Another common one, enough, is 'abbastanza'.
Abbastanza: enough.
Quanto hai dormito? "How much did you sleep?"
Abbastanza. "Enough."
Quante ore hai dormito?
Enough.
You don't have to go specific so you don't have to say how many hours you slept, you can just say 'enough', 'abbastanza'.
While when someone is giving you something, let's assume I'm filling your plate with pasta because that's what we do, and if you don't want more than what I'm giving you already you don't say 'abbastanza', I mean you can say 'abbastanza' and we still understand what you're saying but you say 'basta' like stop.
We see the word is the same basically 'basta' is inside 'abbastanza' which means it's enough. 'Basta' is also enough, but if you say like 'Basta!' like that it's kind of like 'Enough is enough!'
So just go with 'abbastanza'' when you're asked something, okay?
And going down and down with our quantity if it's not 'troppo' (so 'too much'), or 'molto' ('a lot'), or 'enough', 'abbastanza', then we have:
Un po'
which comes from 'un poco' which is a little, a few.
For example, 'do you want some wine?':
Vuoi del vino?
Solo un po'/un poco. "Just a bit"
'Solo' is just but you can also say 'poco', a bit. 'Poco', and we usually do this 'poco'.
"I'm a bit confused."
Sono un po' confuso.
Un po' confuso: 'a bit confused'.
Quanti parenti hai in questa città? "How many relatives do you have in this city?"
Pochi. "A few."
You can say "un po'" here too but if you say "pochi" you're referring to relatives: "pochi parenti." That's why it changes. Same as 'molto' that becomes 'molta' with pasta, 'poco' for example 'poco tempo', 'poca pasta'. But if you go with "un po'," the short version, you don't have to change.
Quanto tempo usi per studiare l'italiano? "How much time do you use to study Italian?"
Un po'.
I know, you don't have to hide. But I hope that this video could help you even if "solo un po'" even if just a little, and if you want to learn even more just click the link in the description, download our PDF lessons and learn how to have real Italian conversations with native speakers.
Thank you again for watching, remember to Like and subscribe if you haven't and I'll see you soon. Ciao ciao, bye bye.

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