Questo, Quello and Codesto: Italian Demonstratives Explained

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“Quanto costa questo?” “Passami quel libro.” “Quell’uomo è il mio professore.” You cannot go shopping, ask for directions or tell a story without pointing at something: this, that, these, those. Italian has a small family of words for this, the demonstratives, and two things make them tricky for learners: quello changes shape before a noun exactly like the definite article does (quel libro, quello studente, quell’amico), and there is a third term, codesto, that you will meet in Tuscany and in old texts. Demonstratives are one of the places where you can best see how a language organises space: near me, far from me and, in Tuscany, near you. Here you will find the forms, the rules and a few curiosities, and exercises at the end. The grammar data come from the Treccani sources listed at the end; the rest comes from my lessons.

What demonstratives do

The Treccani grammar defines demonstratives as words that indicate where someone or something is, in space or in time. You find them in spatial uses (questa casa, quel bar), in temporal uses (quest’anno, quella volta, quel giorno), and to refer back to something already mentioned (Quella frase che hai citato prima mi piace) or forward to something that is coming (Questo progetto verrà spiegato più avanti).

The Enciclopedia dell’italiano explains the basic system: questo is “close”, near the speaker; quello is “far” from the speaker. The distance does not have to be physical. It can be emotional, and the encyclopedia notes that reinforced forms can carry a feeling, for example a negative tone in lo ha detto quello là.

Questo: this

The forms of questo are four, like any adjective in -o:

	masculine	feminine
singular	questo	questa
plural	questi	queste

As an adjective it stands before the noun, without the article: questo quaderno, not “il questo quaderno”. The Treccani encyclopedia marks the version with the article as ungrammatical. As a pronoun it replaces the noun: Ho letto anche questo (I read this too). The same form works as adjective and pronoun, unlike in French.

Treccani notes that before a vowel questo can lose its final vowel, as in quest’anno. In the colloquial spoken language you also hear a short form, ‘sto, ‘sta, ‘sti, ‘ste; the encyclopedia says that it is common in speech and avoided in formal writing, and that it survives in words such as stasera, stamattina, stanotte, stavolta. Those four words are worth learning as they are.

Quello: that, and its many forms

As a pronoun, quello has four forms (quello, quella, quelli, quelle): Passami quello. As an adjective, before a noun, it follows the same rule as the masculine definite article. This is the table from the Treccani Vocabolario:

Before	Form	Example	Same as article
masc. sing., consonant	quel	quel treno	il
masc. sing., s + consonant, z, gn, ps, x	quello	quello zingaro, quello spaccone	lo
masc. sing., vowel	quell’	quell’uomo	l’
masc. plural, consonant	quei	quei bicchieri	i
masc. plural, vowel or s + consonant, z…	quegli	quegli uscieri	gli
fem. sing.	quella / quell’	quella famiglia, quell’opera	la / l’
fem. plural	quelle	quelle strade	le

A small note: the Vocabolario says that today quelle entrate is preferred to quell’entrate in the feminine plural, so you do not elide there. A practical rule: if you know the article, you know the demonstrative. Il treno → quel treno; lo studente → quello studente; l’amico → quell’amico; i libri → quei libri; gli amici → quegli amici. For a refresher on prepositions that merge with these articles, read my article on Italian articulated prepositions.

Quel che and quello che

The Vocabolario also records a very useful use: quello can be shortened to quel before the relative che, with the neutral meaning of “the thing that”: faccio quel che mi pare; ho ascoltato con attenzione quello che mi hai detto. Other fixed expressions are quel che è peggio (what is worse) and per quel che ne so io (as far as I know). In comparisons it can mean “than what”: è finita meglio di quel che s’aspettavano. These expressions are frequent in speech, so they are worth learning early.

Codesto: the Tuscan middle term

According to the Enciclopedia dell’italiano, Tuscan has a three-term system: questo (near me), codesto (near you) and quello (far from both). Codesto refers to something close to the person you are speaking to, and it pairs with the adverb costì. It derives from a Latin expression involving the pronoun “you”. From my experience, outside Tuscany this word is rare in speech and survives mostly in bureaucratic or old-fashioned language, so as a learner you only need to recognise it. If you read it in a text, think “that one near you”.

Using demonstratives to talk about time

Italian uses the same words for time, with the same logic of near and far: quest’anno (this year), questa settimana, questo weekend; and quel giorno (that day), quella sera, a quel tempo. The Vocabolario gives a quel tempo non c’era ancora la luce elettrica as an example. When you tell a story in the past, quel giorno, quella volta are natural ways to place the moment.

Pointing back and forward, and the emotional use

The Enciclopedia dell’italiano describes how demonstratives work inside a text: they can refer back to something already mentioned (anaphora) or announce something that will come (cataphora). It also gives an example that is interesting for more advanced learners: the choice of quello instead of the expected questo can show the speaker’s attitude. Even a person mentioned a moment ago can be called quello if the speaker wants to keep a distance. In everyday speech, questo qua and quello là often have a slightly negative or ironic tone: Questo qua pretende di avere ragione!. Use them with care.

Where people get confused

French has a single ce with the particles -ci and -là, so people who think in French may look for the same pattern in Italian. People who think in German find dieser and jener but rarely use the second, and end up always saying «questo». Mistakes are welcome: these slips are useful, because they show where to linger.

• Il questo libro. → Questo libro. No article before a demonstrative.
• Quello libro. → Quel libro. Follow the article: il → quel.
• Quel amico. → Quell’amico. Elide before a vowel in the singular.
• Quelli bicchieri. → Quei bicchieri. The adjective follows i, not the pronoun quelli.
• Quegli libri. → Quei libri. Quegli goes with gli (vowel, s + consonant, z).
• Quest’anno sono andato in Sicilia l’anno scorso. → Quell’anno sono andato in Sicilia. / L’anno scorso sono andato in Sicilia. Quest’ is for the present period; for a year that is over, use quell’ or l’anno scorso.
• Prendo quello libro e quello penna. → Prendo quel libro e quella penna.

A chat at the market

Cliente: Buongiorno, quanto costano queste mele?
Venditore: Due euro al chilo. Ma quelle là, in fondo, sono più dolci.
Cliente: Allora prendo quelle. E quel formaggio, com’è?
Venditore: Questo è fresco, quello vicino all’olio è stagionato.
Cliente: Quello stagionato, per favore. E quegli spaghetti artigianali?
Venditore: Quest’anno sono venuti benissimo!

The dialogue shows questo / queste (near), quelle là (far), the pronoun quello, and the adjective forms quel formaggio, quegli spaghetti. For a way to ask whether something is available, see the article on c’è and ci sono.

Exercises: questo or quello?

Exercise 1 – Choose the form of quello

1. ______ libro (il libro)
2. ______ studente (lo studente)
3. ______ amica (l’amica)
4. ______ zaini (gli zaini)
5. ______ finestre (le finestre)
6. ______ bambini (i bambini)

Answers: 1. Quel; 2. Quello; 3. Quell’; 4. Quegli; 5. Quelle; 6. Quei.

Exercise 2 – Questo or quello?

1. I am holding a pen and I say: ______ penna è nuova.
2. I point at a mountain far away: ______ montagna è altissima.
3. A year that has not ended yet: ______ anno vado in Sicilia.
4. A day in the past, in a story: ______ giorno pioveva.

Answers: 1. Questa; 2. Quella; 3. Quest’; 4. Quel.

Exercise 3 – Replace the noun with a pronoun

1. Quel cappotto è caro, ma questo cappotto è economico. → Quel cappotto è caro, ma ______ è economico.
2. Mi piacciono quelle scarpe. → Mi piacciono ______.

Answers: 1. questo; 2. quelle.

Exercise 4 – Correct the mistake

1. Il questo ristorante è buono.
2. Quel amico è simpatico.
3. Quelli studenti sono bravi.

Answers: 1. Questo ristorante è buono. 2. Quell’amico è simpatico. 3. Quegli studenti sono bravi.

Questions to get curious about

• Does your language have two or three words for “this” and “that”? Is there a word for “that near you”, like the Tuscan codesto?
• Describe your room using questo and quello: what is near you, and what is far?
• Which Italian nouns do you know with the article lo? Write quello + each of them.

A method to remember quello

Do not memorise the table of quello as a new list. Link it to what you already know: il → quel, lo → quello, l’ → quell’, i → quei, gli → quegli, la → quella, le → quelle. Say ten pairs aloud every day for a week. To go from “this” to “my”, review the article on Italian possessive adjectives, and for requests such as Passami quel libro have a look at the lesson on the informal imperative.

If you want to try aloud

Pointing, describing, telling: demonstratives are learned by speaking. Book a free trial lesson, take the level test and join the course waiting list, which is open.

Sources

• Treccani – “dimostrativi, aggettivi e pronomi”, Enciclopedia dell’italiano
• Treccani – “Dimostrativi, aggettivi”, La grammatica italiana
• Treccani – “quello”, Vocabolario

Definition, near/far system, forms of questo, ‘sto and ‘sta, codesto, forms of quello and expressions such as quel che are checked on the Treccani sources above. Tables, advice on elision and speech, dialogue and exercises are the result of my lessons.