Numbers in Italian: Everything You Need to Know

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Welcome back to another one of our Italian lessons! Today we’re looking at something that seems so simple, but is actually one of the most important aspects of learning a language: nailing your numbers. Whether you’re counting to ten, asking for the time or writing the date, we’ve got you covered!

Learning your numbers in Italian really is as easy as 1, 2, 3. Luckily, the system is simple, regular and easy to follow. Don’t worry: after you’ve read our top tips, you’ll be counting in your sleep.

Simple numbers in Italian: 1 – 100

It may seem simple, but memorising these numbers will give you a perfect starting point to help with all your number-related problems. Something as easy as paying in a shop or booking a table at a restaurant will require knowledge of these numbers – and that’s where we come in.

The tables mark the stressed syllable in capitals. These are Italian syllable spellings, not English phonetic transcriptions. Listen to dictionary audio and review our pronunciation guide for the sounds.

You’re welcome.

Let’s start at the beginning. As Julie Andrews will tell us, it’s a very good place to start.

Numbers 1 – 10

Number	Italian	Stressed syllable in capitals
1	Uno	U-no
2	Due	DU-e
3	Tre	tre
4	Quattro	QUAT-tro
5	Cinque	CIN-que
6	Sei	sei
7	Sette	SET-te
8	Otto	OT-to
9	Nove	NO-ve
10	Dieci	DIE-ci

That’s all there is to it! Practice counting to ten over and over again and before long, you’ll start to get the hang of it.

Unfortunately, once we hit ten, the regular pattern starts to go a little out the window. The good news, though, is that after 20, we’re all regular again. Phew! Read on to find out how to structure the ‘teens.

Numbers 11 – 20

Number	Italian	Stressed syllable in capitals
11	Undici	UN-di-ci
12	Dodici	DO-di-ci
13	Tredici	TRE-di-ci
14	Quattordici	quat-TOR-di-ci
15	Quindici	QUIN-di-ci
16	Sedici	SE-di-ci
17	Diciassette	di-cia-SET-te
18	Diciotto	di-CIOT-to
19	Diciannove	di-cian-NO-ve
20	Venti	VEN-ti

An easy(ish) way to remember this is that: after 16, the ‘dici’ part flips over to the front of the word. The spelling, unfortunately, you have to remember for yourself.

Numbers from 20 – 99

We’re now going to take a look at the way to structure numbers from 20 – 99. Thankfully, this follows a pretty clear pattern, which means that you won’t have to memorise nearly 100 numbers. Woo-hoo!

Let’s take the twenties as an example (because everyone knows that your twenties are the best years of your life).

Number	Italian	Stressed syllable in capitals
21	Ventuno	ven-TU-no
22	Ventidue	ven-ti-DU-e
23	Ventitré	ven-ti-TRÉ
24	Ventiquattro	ven-ti-QUAT-tro
25	Venticinque	ven-ti-CIN-que
26	Ventisei	ven-ti-SEI
27	Ventisette	ven-ti-SET-te
28	Ventotto	ven-TOT-to
29	Ventinove	ven-ti-NO-ve

As you can see, the structure is really simple:

Venti + Number from 1-9

Before uno or otto, the tens lose their final vowel: ventuno, ventotto. Do not write an apostrophe inside these number words.

vent + uno/otto (no apostrophe in the final word)

This pattern applies to tens through ninety. Compounds ending in -tré take an accent: ventitré, quarantatré. The standalone word tre has no accent.

Let’s take a look now at the multiples of 10, from 30 – 90 (which are all super easy to remember).

Number	Italian	Stressed syllable in capitals
30	Trenta	TREN-ta
40	Quaranta	qua-RAN-ta
50	Cinquanta	cin-QUAN-ta
60	Sessanta	ses-SAN-ta
70	Settanta	set-TAN-ta
80	Ottanta	ot-TAN-ta
90	Novanta	no-VAN-ta

So, using the same formula as above, you can work out any number between 20 and 99 that you could ever need! For example:

43 = Quaranta + Tre – Quarantatré

67 = Sessanta + Sette – Sessantasette

81 = ottant + uno (no apostrophe in the final word) – Ottantuno

Larger Numbers: 100/1000 etc…

Now that you’ve mastered the simple numbers that lead up to 100, it’s time to come to terms with those pesky big numbers. Even in your own language, these can seem overwhelming, but we’re here to help you get fully equipped with anything larger than 100.

The Hundreds

These are super simple. Once you remember the word for 100, this is your golden ticket to all the ‘hundreds’. This magical word is:

Cento

To put it bluntly, just shove a number between 2 and 9 in front of this and hey presto! That’s your number. Here’s a table to help you remember (and show you the pronunciation):

Number	Italian	Stressed syllable in capitals
200	Duecento	dueCEN-to
300	Trecento	treCEN-to
400	Quattrocento	quattroCEN-to
500	Cinquecento	cinqueCEN-to
600	Seicento	seiCEN-to
700	Settecento	setteCEN-to
800	Ottocento	ottoCEN-to
900	Novecento	noveCEN-to

When you’re looking for a specific number between 100 and 1000, it works pretty similarly to the way we would speak in English. HOWEVER, while we would say, for example:

Three hundred and fifty-two

The Italian construction is even simpler, where they drop the ‘and’. So this would become, literally translated:

Trecento cinquantadue

(Three hundred fifty-two)

Compound number words are usually written together: trecentocinquantadue. The spaces above illustrate the parts, rather than the normal complete spelling.

The Thousands

Before moving onto describing the thousands (which work in a similar way to the hundreds), I want to tell you about DECIMAL PLACES.

This probably sounds like something that wouldn’t make a big difference. HOWEVER, the use of commas and decimal places is totally different between English and Italian, and can sometimes cause a lot of confusion. A good example can be found in CURRENCY.

Let’s take the figure

€1,274.50

To anyone in the English-speaking world, this looks normal (albeit expensive). BUT, what you have to remember in Italian (and in many other European countries), the commas and the full stops are SWAPPED. So the above figure, using Italian punctuation (with the same currency), would become:

€1.274,50

And this is identical also for normal numbers (i.e. not currency-related). The decimal place is actually a decimal comma. Confusing, we know.

All that aside, let’s talk about the THOUSANDS.

The structure of the thousands is actually pretty similar to the hundreds, but this time our key word is:

Mille

Mille means one thousand. Its plural form in number compounds is -mila: duemila, tremila.

Let’s look at the pattern in one of our trusty tables:

Number	Italian	Stressed syllable in capitals
2000	Duemila	dueMI-la
3000	Tremila	treMI-la
4000	Quattromila	quattroMI-la
5000	Cinquemila	cinqueMI-la
6000	Seimila	seiMI-la
7000	Settemila	setteMI-la
8000	Ottomila	ottoMI-la
9000	Novemila	noveMI-la

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Q: how do we construct a number between 1,000 and 10,000? A: by using the same method as we’ve already seen with the hundreds. Have a look at this example:

One thousand, seven hundred and twenty-six

In Italian, by dropping the ‘and’ again, we can easily construct any number within this bracket.

Millesettecentoventisei

(One thousand seven hundred twenty-six)

And it really is that simple! Once you get the hang of the patterns, you’ll find that Italian numbers are a piece of cake.

Ordinal Numbers

‘What on Earth are those?’ we hear you ask. Ordinal Numbers is just a fancy name for saying 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th and so on. Luckily, Italian ordinal numbers are actually much more regular than their English counterparts, and after ‘10th’ all use the same ending. Yay!

Let’s take a look at the first 10 numbers.

1 ^st	primo
2^nd	secondo
3^rd	terzo
4^th	quarto
5^th	quinto
6^th	sesto
7^th	settimo
8^th	ottavo
9^th	nono
10^th	decimo

From eleven onward, ordinals generally add -esimo after dropping the cardinal’s final vowel: venti → ventesimo. Compounds ending in tre retain e (ventitreesimo), and compounds ending in sei retain i (ventiseiesimo). Ordinals agree with the noun: primo piano, prima pagina.

**Cardinal stem + -esimo, with the spelling adjustments described above.**

Here are some examples for you:

43rd = Quarantatré + esimo – Quarantatreesimo

57th = Cinquantasette + esimo – Cinquantasettesimo

82nd = Ottantadue + esimo – Ottantaduesimo

Dates

Writing the date in different languages is something that sounds simple – and, for the most part, is. But there are a few little details and differences to bear in mind that will really have you speaking like a native. Here’s an example of the date to highlight these key variations.

giovedì 4 aprile 2019

Italian dates normally use cardinal numbers: il quattro aprile. The first day of a month is the usual exception: il primo aprile.

Days and months normally take lowercase initials, except at the beginning of a sentence or where another convention, such as a proper name, applies.

Now for something that a lot of people struggle with: the year. Again, this is much easier in Italian than in English. Taking the year 1972, we can explain to you the differences between the Italian way of expressing this aloud, and the English way. In English, we would split the date into two separate numbers, and say this date as:

Nineteen seventy-two

But in Italian, we would take this at face value: i.e., treat it as one whole number. We would therefore say (as we learned earlier on in this guide):

Millenovecentosettantadue

(One thousand, nine hundred and seventy-two)

And this is the same for any year or date.

Telling the Time

While we’ve got you thinking about numbers, we’re going to talk you through how to express the time in Italian – which, again, has a few subtle differences from the English way of telling the time.

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The simplest way to talk about the time in Italian is pretty much exactly the same as in English. 15:25 in English would be:

Three twenty-five

Twenty-five past three

Whereas, in Italian, you would simply say:

Sono le tre e venticinque

(Three and twenty-five)

When you’re feeling a little more old-school, and want to go analogue instead of digital, take a look at the following table:

Quarter past	E un quarto
Half past	E mezzo
Quarter to	Meno un quarto

You can also use ‘meno’ for our equivalent of ‘ten to’ / ‘five to’ / ‘twenty to’ etc. For example, ‘five to eleven’ would become:

Le undici meno cinque.

For most hours, use Sono le…: Sono le dieci. Use singular È l’una, È mezzogiorno and È mezzanotte. To say “at” a time, use alle dieci or all’una.

It is ten ‘o’ clock

We would say:

Sono le dieci.

EXCEPT when it is: one ‘o’ clock, midday or midnight.

Conclusion

So that was our inclusive list of all things numerous. Hopefully now, when someone asks you for the date, time and number of cats you own, you’ll be able to answer them seamlessly. While a lot of this requires a good memory and determination, you’ll find that the regular patterns will help you as you’re learning to count, tell time and write the date in Italian.

We’ll have you sounding like a local in no time.

But until then, arrivederci!