Parli Italiano?
Chapter 4: Il pronome ne
The pronoun ne is essential in Italian, although there is no exact equivalent in English.
This partitive pronoun commonly answers the explicit or implicit question “How much/how many?” It behaves like a direct object pronoun, but it is used when talking about a quantity.
– Quante lingue parla Francesca? [How many languages does Francesca speak?]
– Ne parla tre: italiano, inglese e spagnolo. [She speaks three OF THEM: Italian, English, and Spanish.]
– Quanto tempo passi a studiare italiano? [How much time do you spend studying Italian?]
– Ne passo poco: una o due ore al giorno. [I do not spend a lot OF IT: one or two hours a day.]
While in English it is not necessary to say of them, in Italian it is necessary to use ne (which here means “of them”).
Remember:
- Ne means of it or of them.
- Most of the time, Ne answers the questions Quanto? Quanta? Quanti? Quante? (How much/How many?), whether the question is made explicit or just implied.
- Ne is usually followed by a quantity, for example a number or an amount
– Quanti anni hai? – Ne ho 19!
Di solito non bevo molti caffè, Ne bevo solamente uno la mattina.
– Conosci delle canzoni italiane? – No, non ne conosco nessuna.
Ne always goes before the conjugated verb (ne bevo uno, ne ho 19, non ne conosco). However, when it is used with a conjugated verb + an infinitive, it can either go before the conjugated verb or at to the end of the infinitive after dropping the last letter. See the examples:
– Hai già fatto gli esercizi di grammatica? – Sì, ma ne devo fare ancora un po’
– Sì, ma devo farne ancora un po’
With tutto/a/i/e the particle NE is not used and is instead replaced by the regular direct object pronouns (LO/LA/LI/LE).
- Quante pagine hai letto? – Le ho lette tutte.
When used in combination with a passato prossimo, ne behaves like other direct object pronouns, and changes the number and gender of the past participle:
- Quanti esercizi ha assegnato la professoressa oggi? – Ne ha assegnati cinque.
NOTA BENE
Ne is also used with many common verbs to mean “about it” rather than “of it”.
The verbs that use ne with this meaning are:
- pensare – cosa ne pensi? [What do you think about it?]
- dire – cosa ne dici? [What do you say about it?]
- sapere – cosa ne sai? [What do you know about it?]; non ne so niente ([I don’t know anything about it]
- parlare – loro parlano tanto di politica; ne parlano troppo! [they talk so much about politics; they talk about it too much!]
- importare – non me ne importa [I don’t care about it]; non me ne importa niente [I don’t care about it at all]