Learn Italian: Quante patate mettete qui? - How many potatoes are you putting here?

Quante patate mettete qui?

How many potatoes are you putting here?

Breakdown of Quante patate mettete qui?

to put / to put on / play (music)

la patata

the potato

Questions & Answers about Quante patate mettete qui?

Why does the sentence use quante instead of quanto?

Quanto changes its ending to match the noun it is asking about. Because patate (potatoes) is a feminine plural noun, quanto changes to quante to match it perfectly in both gender and number.

What is the singular form of patate?

The singular is patata. In Italian, most feminine nouns ending in -a change that ending to an -e to become plural.

How do we know who is putting the potatoes here if there is no subject pronoun?

In Italian, the subject is built directly into the verb ending. Mettete is the voi (plural you) form of the verb mettere (to put). Because the ending clearly tells us who is doing the action, the word voi can be left out.