Learn Italian: Quanta pasta e quanti pomodori abbiamo? - How much pasta and how many tomatoes do we have?

Quanta pasta e quanti pomodori abbiamo?

How much pasta and how many tomatoes do we have?

Breakdown of Quanta pasta e quanti pomodori abbiamo?

Questions & Answers about Quanta pasta e quanti pomodori abbiamo?

Why does the sentence use quanta for pasta but quanti for tomatoes?

The word quanto changes its ending to match the gender and number of the noun it describes. Pasta is a feminine singular noun, so it takes the feminine singular form quanta. Pomodori (tomatoes) is a masculine plural noun, so it takes the masculine plural form quanti.

How do I know whether to translate this word as "how much" or "how many"?

In Italian, you use the same root word for both! The English translation just depends on whether the Italian noun is singular or plural. The singular forms (quanto, quanta) translate to "how much" for things you can't count individually, like pasta. The plural forms (quanti, quante) translate to "how many" for things you can count, like tomatoes.

What is the singular form of pomodori?

The singular is pomodoro (tomato). Because it is a masculine noun ending in -o, its plural is formed by changing the -o to an -i, which gives us pomodori.

Where is the word for "we" in this sentence?

In Italian, the pronoun noi (we) is usually dropped because the verb itself tells you who is doing the action. The verb abbiamo means "we have" all on its own, so we don't need to add noi unless we want to be extra emphatic.