Italian Math Vocabulary: Più, Meno, Diviso, Per (A2)

🔍 In short. The core italian math vocabulary for everyday calculations rests on six words: più (+), meno (−), per or moltiplicato per (×), diviso (÷), uguale or fa (=), and per cento (%). Italians say sette più tre fa dieci for 7+3=10, otto per quattro fa trentadue for 8×4=32, venti diviso cinque fa quattro for 20÷5=4. Decimals use a comma, not a point: 3,14 is tre virgola quattordici. Fractions stack a cardinal over an ordinal: 3/4 is tre quarti, 1/8 is un ottavo. Square and cube are al quadrato and al cubo. This A2 guide covers every piece, with a shopping dialogue and a quiz.

Get the italian math vocabulary right and you stop freezing at the cash tone, at the market, when a friend reads out a recipe in grams, or when a percentage flashes on the news. Numbers feel ordinary the moment you can say what is happening to them: added, taken away, multiplied, divided, halved. The italian math vocabulary is also one of the most practical chunks of Italian for an A2 learner, because it shows up every single time you handle money, time, or measurement.

Behind the italian math vocabulary sits a small set of patterns, not a long list to memorise. Once you see how each symbol maps to its Italian word, every new calculation reuses the same five or six pieces. The italian math vocabulary scales: the rules you learn for two plus two work for two thousand plus two thousand, and the rules for fractions in a recipe also explain percentages in a sales sign.

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The six words that cover the italian math vocabulary

Walk into any classroom in Pisa and a teacher solving a sum on the board will use the same handful of words a grandmother uses at the market when she counts her change. The italian math vocabulary you need for A2 is tiny: più, meno, per, diviso, uguale, and fa. Add virgola for decimals and per cento for percentages and you can read most numbers that appear on a receipt, a recipe, or a phone screen.

• Tre più due fa cinque.
  Three plus two equals five.
• Dieci meno quattro fa sei.
  Ten minus four equals six.
• Sei per sette fa quarantadue.
  Six times seven equals forty-two.
• Venti diviso quattro fa cinque.
  Twenty divided by four equals five.

Notice the verb at the end: fa, literally “it makes”. Italians almost always read calculations aloud with fa for the equals sign in casual speech. In a more formal or written tone you can swap fa for uguale or è uguale a, but at the market and around the kitchen table, fa is what you will hear. The italian math vocabulary keeps the grammar simple: subject (the calculation) + fa + result. Practising the italian math vocabulary out loud, even with toy examples, builds a fluency that no textbook drill can replace.

Addition, subtraction, multiplication, division

Each of the four basic operations in the italian math vocabulary has a short everyday word and a longer technical one. The short one travels through conversation; the longer one shows up in textbooks and on tax forms. You can learn both, but the short word is what makes you understood at the cash tone.

Addition with più

The plus sign is più. The verb behind the operation is sommare or addizionare, but in everyday speech you simply say più. Notice that più here is the same word Italians use for “more”: più caffè, più tempo. Mathematically it just means “and one more thing added to the count”.

• Due più tre fa cinque.
  Two plus three equals five.
• Quindici più venticinque fa quaranta.
  Fifteen plus twenty-five equals forty.
• Cento più cento fa duecento.
  One hundred plus one hundred equals two hundred.
• Se sommi tutti i conti, fa cinquanta euro.
  If you add up all the bills, it comes to fifty euros.

The technical verb sommare is what a teacher writes on the board: somma means “sum, total”. You will see la somma on receipts as “the total”. In the italian math vocabulary, la somma fa + result is the formal way to deliver an addition, the conversational equivalent is the bare più … fa. Both belong to the same italian math vocabulary, just at different formality levels.

Subtraction with meno

The minus sign is meno, the same word that means “less”. The verb is sottrarre (“to subtract”). Again, the short word dominates everyday speech. A small but useful detail: when you tell time, meno behaves exactly the same way. Le sette meno dieci means “ten to seven”, literally “the seven minus ten”.

• Dieci meno tre fa sette.
  Ten minus three equals seven.
• Cinquanta meno venti fa trenta.
  Fifty minus twenty equals thirty.
• Novanta meno quarantacinque fa quarantacinque.
  Ninety minus forty-five equals forty-five.
• Mille meno cento fa novecento.
  One thousand minus one hundred equals nine hundred.

If you want to be explicit about the operation, the verb form is sottrarre a: se sottrai venti a cinquanta, fa trenta. The result of a subtraction is called la differenza, which is also the everyday word for “the difference” between two things, two prices, two opinions. This double life of words is one of the friendly traits of the italian math vocabulary: most of the terms are already in your general vocabulary, just wearing a math hat.

Multiplication with per

The times sign (×) is read as per. The verb is moltiplicare, and in slower or more formal speech you will hear moltiplicato per instead of bare per: sette moltiplicato per tre fa ventuno. Italians also use volte (“times”) in the same slot: sette volte tre fa ventuno. All three are correct; per is the most common.

• Tre per quattro fa dodici.
  Three times four equals twelve.
• Otto per otto fa sessantaquattro.
  Eight times eight equals sixty-four.
• Sei moltiplicato per nove fa cinquantaquattro.
  Six multiplied by nine equals fifty-four.
• Due volte cinque fa dieci.
  Two times five equals ten.

This same per describes the dimensions of a room or a tile: il salotto è quattro metri per cinque means “the living room is four metres by five”. Same little word, same multiplication logic. The result of a multiplication is il prodotto, but you almost never need to use that word outside a textbook. In the italian math vocabulary, per does most of the work, which is why it shows up so often in the italian math vocabulary you actually need at the supermarket.

Division with diviso

The division sign (÷) is read as diviso. The verb is dividere. In more formal or written contexts you may meet fratto instead, which is the word also used for fractions written as a stacked pair: tre fratto quattro for 3/4 read in a textbook tone. In conversation, diviso covers everything.

• Sedici diviso quattro fa quattro.
  Sixteen divided by four equals four.
• Ottanta diviso dieci fa otto.
  Eighty divided by ten equals eight.
• Cento diviso cinque fa venti.
  One hundred divided by five equals twenty.
• Il conto è settanta euro: diviso quattro fa diciassette e cinquanta a testa.
  The bill is seventy euros: divided by four it comes to seventeen-fifty each.

The expression a testa (“each”, literally “per head”) is the everyday companion of diviso when Italians split a bill. Pay attention to how natural the verb fa sounds at the end: diviso quattro fa diciassette e cinquanta, with the result given in plain euros and cents. The italian math vocabulary mixes neatly with daily price talk, and dinner with friends is one of the most reliable places to hear the italian math vocabulary in real time.

Reading large numbers aloud

Before you can do calculations comfortably, you need to be able to say larger numbers without freezing. Italian builds numbers by stacking the parts together as one long word, with no hyphen and no “and”: centoventitré is 123, milleseicentoquarantadue is 1642. The final tre in numbers above 22 carries a written accent (ventitré, trentatré, centotré) because the stress falls on it.

• Pisa ha circa novantamila abitanti.
  Pisa has about ninety thousand inhabitants.
• Il libro costa diciassette euro e cinquanta centesimi.
  The book costs seventeen euros and fifty cents.
• L’Italia ha più di cinquantanove milioni di abitanti.
  Italy has more than fifty-nine million inhabitants.
• L’azienda ha guadagnato un miliardo di euro.
  The company earned a billion euros.

Two traps worth remembering. First, milione and miliardo are nouns, not numerals, so they take di before what they count: un milione di euro, due miliardi di persone. Second, mille becomes -mila in compounds: duemila, tremila, diecimila. So 1842 is milleottocentoquarantadue, but 5000 is cinquemila. Mixing these up is one of the most common slips when you start working with the italian math vocabulary at conversational speed, and a few weeks of news-listening will iron the wrinkles out of the italian math vocabulary.

For phone numbers, Italians usually read each digit on its own or in pairs of two. A number written 051 27 35 60 can be read zero cinque uno, due sette, tre cinque, sei zero, or grouped as cinquantuno, ventisette, trentacinque, sessanta. There is no equivalent of English “double seven”; if two identical digits appear in a row, they are simply read twice: sette sette, not doppio sette. Phone numbers sit just at the edge of the italian math vocabulary, but reading them confidently is part of the same skill.

Decimals: the comma, not the point

Here the italian math vocabulary departs from English in a small but visible way. Italian writes decimals with a comma, not a period. The number 3.14 in English becomes 3,14 in Italian, and is read tre virgola quattordici. The English habit of saying “three point one four” is replaced by virgola, the same word that means “comma” in punctuation.

• 10,8 → dieci virgola otto.
  10.8 → ten point eight.
• 3,14 → tre virgola quattordici.
  3.14 → three point one four.
• 207,03 → duecentosette virgola zerotré.
  207.03 → two hundred seven point zero three.
• Il pane costa due virgola cinquanta al chilo.
  The bread costs two-fifty per kilo.

Two reading habits to notice. First, the digits after the comma can be read as a single number (tre virgola quattordici) or one by one (tre virgola uno quattro); the first option is more common in everyday speech. Second, when a price involves cents, Italians often skip virgola entirely and use e: due euro e cinquanta rather than due virgola cinquanta euro. Both are correct and both are heard daily at the bar in Pisa.

The flip side of the comma habit is the use of the point as a thousands separator. Where English writes 1,000,000, Italian writes 1.000.000 or simply 1 000 000 with spaces. So if you see a price tag that reads 1.250,00, it is one thousand two hundred fifty euros, not one point twenty-five. This is a real italian math vocabulary trap for English speakers reading Italian invoices for the first time, and it is worth flagging early so you do not misread a number by three orders of magnitude.

Percentages: 70%, settanta per cento

Percentages get three written forms in Italian: 70%, 70 percento, and 70 per cento. All three are correct. The two-word form per cento is the most traditional and is the safe choice in writing. Percento as one word is increasingly common in journalism. The percent symbol is universal. Spoken aloud, all three read identically: settanta per cento.

• Lo sconto è del venti per cento.
  The discount is twenty percent.
• Il settanta per cento degli italiani beve caffè ogni mattina.
  Seventy percent of Italians drink coffee every morning.
• Ho preso il novantotto virgola cinque per cento all’esame.
  I got ninety-eight point five percent on the exam.
• L’IVA in Italia è del ventidue per cento.
  VAT in Italy is twenty-two percent.

Notice the article il or the contraction del in front of the percentage. Italian almost always pairs a percentage with the masculine article: il venti per cento, del trenta per cento, al cinquanta per cento. English drops the article (“twenty percent of”), but Italian keeps it, even when the percentage feels approximate. Un venti per cento with the indefinite article means “about twenty percent”, a useful softening for guesses.

The verb stays singular when a percentage is the subject of the sentence: il settanta per cento degli studenti studia all’estero, not studiano. The percentage agrees with itself, not with the plural noun it modifies. This is one of those quiet italian math vocabulary rules that nobody teaches you head-on but that you absorb by reading a few news articles. The italian math vocabulary around percentages also shows up in any cooking show or weather forecast: l’ottanta per cento di umidità, il dieci per cento di probabilità di pioggia.

Fractions: tre quarti, un ottavo, mezzo

Fractions in Italian are built by stacking a cardinal number on top of an ordinal number, exactly the way English does (“three quarters”, “one eighth”). The cardinal tells you how many parts you have; the ordinal tells you how big the whole was. So 3/4 is tre quarti, 1/8 is un ottavo, 5/9 is cinque noni. The ordinal goes plural when the cardinal is greater than one.

• Ho mangiato tre quarti della torta.
  I ate three quarters of the cake.
• Aggiungi un terzo di latte alla pastella.
  Add a third of milk to the batter.
• Solo due quinti degli studenti hanno superato l’esame.
  Only two fifths of the students passed the exam.
• Un ottavo di chilo basta per due porzioni.
  An eighth of a kilo is enough for two portions.

One word stands apart: “half” is mezzo, not the ordinal secondo. Mezzo is an adjective and agrees with what it modifies: mezza torta (feminine), mezzo litro (masculine), mezz’ora with the apostrophe before a vowel. When it follows a number plus a noun, it stays masculine even with a feminine noun: due torte e mezzo, “two and a half cakes”. This is a quirk worth memorising because nothing in the rule predicts it.

• Una bottiglia d’acqua da mezzo litro.
  A half-litre bottle of water.
• Vorrei mezza dose, grazie.
  I’d like a half portion, thanks.
• Tornano fra mezz’ora.
  They’ll be back in half an hour.
• Ho preparato tre torte e mezzo per la festa di Tommaso.
  I made three and a half cakes for Tommaso’s party.

For fractions written in textbooks or on a board, you can also say fratto: 3/4 read aloud as tre fratto quattro. This is the proper math-class tone and is what teachers in Italy use when they want the fraction read as a written object rather than as a quantity. In daily conversation, however, tre quarti wins. Fractions are where the italian math vocabulary meets the kitchen most often: recipes constantly ask for un quarto di litro or mezzo cucchiaino.

Squared, cubed, to the power of

Powers come up more often than you might expect: areas in square metres, volumes in cubic metres, scientific notation on labels and exam questions. The italian math vocabulary for powers is clean. Al quadrato covers “squared”, al cubo covers “cubed”, and any higher power uses alla + ordinal + potenza.

• Tre al quadrato fa nove.
  Three squared equals nine.
• Sette al quadrato fa quarantanove.
  Seven squared equals forty-nine.
• Due alla decima potenza fa milleventiquattro.
  Two to the tenth power equals one thousand twenty-four.
• La cucina è di dodici metri quadrati.
  The kitchen is twelve square metres.

An Italian rental advert will tell you that an apartment is settanta metri quadrati, not settanta metri al quadrato. The shift from al quadrato (the operation) to quadrati (the unit description) is fixed: surfaces are metri quadrati, volumes are metri cubi. You will hear both at the hardware store and on building plans, and house-hunting puts the italian math vocabulary to its most practical use.

For the inverse operation, the square root, Italians say la radice quadrata. La radice quadrata di nove fa tre, “the square root of nine equals three”. You will hear this on quiz shows and in homework help sessions. The cube root is la radice cubica, with the same construction: la radice cubica di ventisette fa tre. Roots are at the upper end of the italian math vocabulary an A2 learner needs, but recognising them on a homework sheet is enough.

Comparisons: più di, meno di, uguale a

Doing math is also comparing quantities. The italian math vocabulary uses the same più and meno from arithmetic, with the preposition di attached, to build “more than” and “less than”. The equals sign in comparisons becomes uguale a, with the preposition a: cinque è uguale a cinque.

• Dieci è più di otto.
  Ten is more than eight.
• Quaranta è meno di cinquanta.
  Forty is less than fifty.
• Tre per quattro è uguale a dodici.
  Three times four equals twelve.
• Il pesce costa meno della carne, oggi al mercato di Pisa.
  Fish costs less than meat today at the Pisa market.

Two small details. First, the preposition di sometimes contracts with the article: più della carne, not più di la carne. Second, before a verb or another clause, più di becomes più di quanto or simply più che: spendo più di quanto guadagno, “I spend more than I earn”. For an A2 learner, the simple più di + noun is the workhorse of the italian math vocabulary when it comes to comparisons.

For approximate comparisons there are two short tools: circa (“about”) and quasi (“almost”). Pisa ha circa novantamila abitanti; il pacco pesa quasi due chili. These soften a number when you are guessing or rounding, and they belong squarely inside the italian math vocabulary, even though they sound like ordinary adverbs. The italian math vocabulary is full of these dual-use words: ordinary in conversation, precise when you need them.

Cheat sheet: symbols and their italian words

One table to keep on the desk while you build calculations in Italian. Each row gives the math symbol, the everyday italian math vocabulary, and a short reading example.

Symbol	Italian word	Reading example
+	più	cinque più tre fa otto
−	meno	dieci meno quattro fa sei
×	per (or moltiplicato per)	sette per otto fa cinquantasei
÷	diviso (or fratto)	venti diviso cinque fa quattro
=	uguale (or fa)	due più due fa quattro
%	per cento	il venti per cento di sconto
,	virgola	tre virgola quattordici
x²	al quadrato	quattro al quadrato fa sedici
x³	al cubo	tre al cubo fa ventisette
3/4	tre quarti	tre quarti della torta
1/2	mezzo / metà	mezzo litro, metà del pane
>	più di / maggiore di	dieci è più di otto
<	meno di / minore di	quattro è meno di sei
√	la radice quadrata di	la radice quadrata di nove fa tre

Dialog: at the market in Pisa

Lucia and Tommaso are at the Saturday market in Pisa, buying fruit and cheese with a small calculator. Watch how naturally the italian math vocabulary slips into ordinary haggling, weighing, and splitting purchases between them.

Count the math words in those twelve lines: al chilo, per, fa, mezzo, dello sconto, per cento, sommiamo, più, etti, terzo di, totale, diviso, a testa, in meno. A single market visit puts the entire italian math vocabulary into circulation, and the numbers behave exactly as they do on paper. The italian math vocabulary you have learned in this guide is enough to follow that whole exchange without a pause.

Test your understanding

Take the quiz below to test what you’ve learned about italian math vocabulary.

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Frequently asked questions

Six recurring questions about the italian math vocabulary come up in every A2 cohort. The answers below also recap the italian math vocabulary points most often forgotten. The Treccani entry on mathematical symbols confirms the three written forms of percentages (70%, 70 percento, 70 per cento) and the standard reading of arithmetic in Italian.

Related guides

Three guides that pair with the italian math vocabulary, plus an institutional reference on mathematical symbols.

• Italian Numbers Audio Guide: Quanti Anni Hai?: the pronunciation of cardinal numbers up to one hundred.
• Italian Prepositions: A Complete Guide: how di, a, da, per work, including their use in percentages and fractions.
• Italian Comparatives and Superlatives: più di and meno di in everyday speech beyond arithmetic.
• Treccani: Simboli matematici: institutional reference on mathematical symbols and the three written forms of percentages.