Demonstratives: questo and quello

A demonstrative determiner points: it picks one item out of all possible items and says this one or that one. Italian has two main demonstratives — questo for things near the speaker, and quello for things farther away — and a third, archaic codesto, which once distinguished "near the listener" but has now retreated to Tuscan dialect and bureaucratic prose. The two-way contrast in modern Italian (this vs that) is simpler than the three-way contrast of, say, Spanish (este, ese, aquel), but Italian compensates by giving quello an unusually rich inflection that perfectly mirrors the adjective bello — and the article il / lo / l' / i / gli. Master this parallel and a large piece of Italian noun-phrase grammar falls into place.

This page lays out the full inflection of questo and quello, walks through the elision rules, makes the quello-as-bello parallel explicit, and notes the cases where codesto still surfaces. Demonstratives are A1 grammar, but the quello paradigm is one of those small puzzles that rewards careful study: once you see how it works, you understand why Italian articles look the way they do.

1. questo — "this" (near the speaker)

Questo is the workhorse demonstrative for things near the speaker — physically close, emotionally close, or current in time. It inflects regularly for gender and number, with optional elision before a vowel.

The crucial thing about questo is that the elision before a vowel is optional, not required. Questo amico and quest'amico are both correct; questa idea and quest'idea are both correct. The elided forms are slightly more compact and slightly more colloquial; the unelided forms are more formal and more emphatic. In writing, both appear; in speech, the elided forms are common but not obligatory.

This contrasts with quello, where the rules below are obligatory and not optional. Questo is the more flexible of the two.

2. quello — "that" (distant from speaker)

Quello is where the puzzle gets interesting. As a determiner placed before a noun, quello inflects exactly like the adjective bello — and like the definite article il / lo / l' / i / gli. Reading these three systems side by side is the single best way to internalize the pattern.

The pattern is identical across all three systems. The shape of quello mirrors the shape of il / lo / l' — and so does the shape of bello. This isn't a coincidence: all three are Italian's response to the same phonotactic pressure (avoiding awkward consonant clusters and hiatus). Master the pattern in one system and you have it for all three.

The feminine paradigm is much simpler — the s+consonant rule does not apply to feminine nouns in Italian, so there is just a binary split between consonants and vowels.

The feminine plural is always quelle — never elided to quell' before a vowel, and never split for s+consonant. Just like le, the feminine plural article it parallels.

3. The quello-as-bello insight

This deserves its own section because it is the central insight that makes the system memorable.

Quello as a determiner inflects exactly like bello as an adjective. They are paradigmatic twins — same shapes, same triggers, same elisions. If you have already learned bel libro / bello zaino / bell'amico / bei libri / begli zaini / begli amici, you have already learned quel libro / quello zaino / quell'amico / quei libri / quegli zaini / quegli amici. Just substitute the stems.

The last example is worth lingering on. Zaini starts with s+consonant, so it triggers the s+cons forms (lo in the singular article, gli in the plural). But quei — the determiner — is sitting before begli — the adjective — and begli is what immediately precedes zaini. The quello-form quei is selected by the next word (begli, which starts with b, a normal consonant), not by the noun further down the line.

This is the same principle that governs articles: the article (and the demonstrative determiner) is selected by the first sound of the immediately following word, not by the noun's spelling further along. Il bravo studente (il because bravo starts with b), but lo studente bravo (lo because studente starts with s+cons). The same rule, applied to quello: in quei begli zaini, quei is selected by begli (which starts with b), not by zaini (which starts with s+cons). The s+cons trigger reaches begli — turning what would be bei into begli — but it doesn't reach all the way back to quei, because quei sees only begli in front of it.

4. Position: always before the noun (when used as a determiner)

When questo and quello function as determiners — that is, when they accompany a noun — they go in front of it. There is no postposed libro questo or casa quella in standard Italian.

The post-nominal demonstrative does exist in some highly marked uses — exclamations like quel libro stupido! with a kind of evaluative emphasis — but the position of choice is overwhelmingly pre-nominal.

When questo and quello function as pronouns (standing alone, not modifying a noun), the inflection pattern is different — and that is treated on a separate page. The short version: as pronouns, they keep stable forms (questo, questa, questi, queste; quello, quella, quelli, quelle) without the quel/quei/quegli shortening. Only the determiner-before-a-noun form takes the elaborate inflection. For more, see Demonstrative Pronouns.

That contrast is the trap most learners fall into. Quei pantaloni (determiner) vs quelli (pronoun) — same meaning, different syntactic role, different surface form.

5. Codesto — the (almost) extinct third demonstrative

Older Italian had a three-way system: questo (near the speaker), codesto (near the listener), and quello (away from both). Modern Italian has collapsed this — questo now covers both "near me" and "near you," and quello covers everything else. Codesto survives in two niches: Tuscan dialect, where the three-way distinction is still alive in some varieties, and bureaucratic and legal Italian, where codesto persists as a stylistic relic. Codesto Comune ("this/that municipality you represent"), codesta spettabile ditta ("this/that esteemed firm") — formulaic phrases of public-administration correspondence.

For an everyday learner, codesto is something to recognize, not produce. The standard modern choice is between questo and quello.

6. The deictic logic: near vs distant

The semantic core is proximity. Questo picks out something close to the speaker — physically, temporally, or psychologically. Quello picks out something farther away on any of the same three dimensions.

The psychological / discourse use is the subtlest. A speaker presenting their own current proposal reaches for questa idea; the same speaker citing someone else's earlier claim might say quell'idea with a faint distancing or critical undertone.

7. Demonstratives strengthened with qui / qua / lì / là

When you want to make the deictic force of questo or quello more explicit, you add a locative adverb: qui / qua ("here") for questo, lì / là ("there") for quello. The pattern is fully native and very common in colloquial speech.

The reinforcers add emphasis and physical pointing. They are also colloquial-leaning — fine in conversation, less common in formal writing. Qui and qua are near-synonymous in this use; same for lì and là. Italian children pick up the reinforced forms first, before mastering the bare questo and quello.

8. Comparison with English

English has a parallel demonstrative system but lacks two features Italian relies on: gender (questo libro m. vs questa casa f.) and phonotactic shortening (quel libro / quello zaino / quell'amico). English this and that never change shape. The biggest learning load is the quello paradigm — seven surface forms where English has one. The consolation: those seven forms exactly mirror the article system you have already learned.

Common Mistakes

Key takeaways

• Italian has a two-way demonstrative system: questo (this — near speaker) and quello (that — distant). The third option codesto (near the listener) survives only in Tuscan dialect and bureaucratic prose.
• Questo inflects regularly for gender and number; elision before a vowel (quest') is optional.
• Quello inflects exactly like the adjective bello and like the article il / lo / l' / i / gli — quel libro, quello zaino, quell'amico, quei libri, quegli alberghi, quella casa, quelle case. The elaborate inflection mirrors three other Italian systems and is governed by the same phonotactic logic.
• The form is selected by the first sound of the immediately following word — usually the noun, but if an adjective sits between, by the adjective.
• Determiner forms differ from pronoun forms: quei libri (determiner) but quelli (pronoun). The shortened quel/quegli forms exist only before a noun.
• Demonstratives can be reinforced with qui / qua (for questo) or lì / là (for quello), giving an explicit pointing emphasis: quel libro lì, questa qua.

For the full inflection of bello (the adjective twin of quello), see Shortened Adjective Forms: bel, quel, san, gran, buon. For the article system that quello mirrors, see The Seven Forms of the Definite Article. For demonstrative pronouns standing alone, see Demonstrative Pronouns. For the wider determiner architecture, see Determiners: Overview.