🔍 In short. The italian cardinal variants are the short and long forms Italian numbers take depending on what follows them. Ventuno can become ventun before anni, ore or any noun starting with a vowel: ventun anni, ventun ore. Venti, trenta, cento and the -anta tens drop their final vowel in the same situation: vent’anni, trent’anni, cent’anni, novant’anni. All compounds of tre from twenty-three upward carry an acute accent on the last e: ventitré, trentatré, centotré. The standalone tre, instead, never takes an accent. These small spelling moves are the difference between writing Italian like a tourist menu and writing it like a Gubbio newspaper.
This A2 guide on the italian cardinal variants sorts them by situation: when to truncate, when to spell out, when to add the accent, and when to leave the number alone. Mastering italian cardinal variants is one of those small spelling upgrades that quietly lifts the quality of your written Italian. With a dialogue from the Festa dei Ceri in Gubbio and a quiz at the end.
Cosa impareremo oggi
👆🏻 Jump to section
- The big picture: why italian cardinal variants exist
- Italian cardinal variants in -uno: ventun, trentun, quarantun
- Italian cardinal variants with apostrophe: vent’anni, cent’anni
- Italian cardinal variants with acute accent: ventitré, trentatré
- Full vs short form: which one to pick
- Quattr’occhi, ventiquattr’ore: fixed expressions
- Singular or plural after ventun?
- Cheat sheet
- Dialogue at the Festa dei Ceri in Gubbio
- Mini-challenge
- Frequently asked questions
- Related guides
The big picture: why italian cardinal variants exist
Italian dislikes putting two vowels next to each other inside a word or across a tight word boundary. Numbers are full of vowel-final pieces (venti, trenta, cento) bumping into vowel-initial nouns (anni, ore). To smooth the rhythm of speech, the language developed a small set of italian cardinal variants: shorter forms used before vowels, accented forms used to mark stress, and longer split forms used in counting out money. None of these italian cardinal variants is optional decoration. Each one belongs to a specific situation, and getting the situation right is what makes a written sentence feel native.
For a quick mental map, the italian cardinal variants fall into four buckets: the short -uno forms (ventun anni), the apostrophe-cut forms (vent’anni, cent’anni), the accented -tré forms (ventitré, trentatré), and the split forms (cento e uno, mille e una notte). Add the handful of fixed idioms with quattro (a quattr’occhi, ventiquattr’ore) and you have covered nearly every case you will meet at A2 and B1.
In Gubbio, on the day of the Festa dei Ceri, you will read posters announcing i ventun ceraioli della muta, hear an old man boast ho cent’anni e li sento tutti, and watch the local newspaper print trentatré alabardieri in piazza Grande. Three different italian cardinal variants in the same morning, each in its proper place. The rules behind the italian cardinal variants are few, but they work as a system, and the system rewards a small amount of upfront attention.
Italian cardinal variants in -uno: ventun, trentun, quarantun
The first family of italian cardinal variants covers the numbers ending in -uno (ventuno, trentuno, quarantuno, cinquantuno, sessantuno, settantuno, ottantuno, novantuno, centouno). They can drop their final -o before the noun they count. The result is ventun, trentun, quarantun and so on, with no apostrophe. These italian cardinal variants are especially common before nouns beginning with a vowel and before the very frequent words anni and ore.
- Gualtiero ha ventun anni e corre per la prima volta.
Gualtiero is twenty-one and is running for the first time. - Sono trentun anni che il sindaco partecipa alla Festa.
It has been thirty-one years that the mayor has joined the Festa. - Quarantun alabardieri scendono lungo via dei Consoli.
Forty-one halberd-bearers march down via dei Consoli. - La basilica ha cinquantun gradini sull’ingresso laterale.
The basilica has fifty-one steps on the side entrance. - Glenda ha comprato ventun cartoline da spedire a Cesena.
Glenda bought twenty-one postcards to send to Cesena.
The same truncation also works before consonants in careful writing, though it is less obligatory: you will see ventun libri next to ventuno libri, both correct. Before vowels, the short form is almost always preferable: ventun anni sounds tidy, ventuno anni sounds slightly clunky. There is no apostrophe in this group of italian cardinal variants: write ventun anni, not ventun’anni. The apostrophe enters the picture only in a different family of variants, the ones we see next.
🎯 Mini-challenge: Pick the more natural form.
- Mia nonna ha (settantuno / settantun) anni.
- Ho comprato (trentuno / trentun) libri in libreria.
- Il Cero è alto (cinquantuno / cinquantun) metri da terra a punta.
- I (ventuno / ventun) ceraioli si sono cambiati la maglia.
- Aspetto da (quarantuno / quarantun) minuti.
👉 Show answers
1. settantun anni (short form preferred before vowel)
2. Both OK; trentun libri slightly more careful, trentuno libri very common in speech
3. cinquantun metri preferred (concise, before consonant)
4. ventun ceraioli preferred before the vowel-feeling group
5. quarantun minuti preferred (short form before a clear noun)
Italian cardinal variants with apostrophe: vent’anni, cent’anni
The second family of italian cardinal variants covers the tens venti and the -anta family (trenta, quaranta, cinquanta, sessanta, settanta, ottanta, novanta), together with cento. They can drop their final vowel before a noun that begins with a vowel. Here the apostrophe does appear, because a vowel has been cut: vent’anni, trent’anni, quarant’anni, cent’anni. The same trick works less often with ore: vent’ore, novant’ore. The number otto may also lose its vowel inside compounds: diciott’anni, sessantott’anni. These italian cardinal variants are the trademark cadence of Italian when talking about age.
- Mio nonno ha sessantott’anni e corre ancora i Ceri.
My grandfather is sixty-eight and still runs the Ceri. - La Festa esiste da novecent’anni circa.
The Festa has existed for about nine hundred years. - Vent’anni fa Glenda venne a Gubbio per la prima volta.
Twenty years ago Glenda came to Gubbio for the first time. - Diciott’anni di tradizione non si cancellano in un giorno.
Eighteen years of tradition are not erased in a day. - Cent’anni fa la corsa partiva alle sei di mattina.
One hundred years ago the race started at six in the morning. - Il parroco ha quarant’anni ma sembra più giovane.
The parish priest is forty but looks younger.
Two cautions about these italian cardinal variants. First, the cut is only allowed before a vowel; nobody writes vent’libri or cent’metri, which stay venti libri and cento metri. Second, the truncated form is most natural with anni, common with ore, and progressively less common with other vowel-initial nouns. Writing cent’amici is correct but feels old-fashioned in everyday prose, while cento amici is neutral.
Italian cardinal variants with acute accent: ventitré, trentatré
The third family of italian cardinal variants sits on the number tre. By itself, tre is written with no accent at all: tre amici, tre Ceri, tre ore. But the moment tre appears as the last piece of a longer number, from twenty-three onward, it carries the main word stress, and Italian marks that stress with an acute accent on the final e: ventitré, trentatré, quarantatré, cinquantatré, sessantatré, settantatré, ottantatré, novantatré, centotré, duecentotré. The accent is always acute (é), the same shape used in perché, né, sé.
- Quest’anno ci sono trentatré alabardieri in piazza Grande.
This year there are thirty-three halberd-bearers in piazza Grande. - Gualtiero ha appena compiuto ventitré anni.
Gualtiero has just turned twenty-three. - Il primo Cero è centotré centimetri più alto del secondo.
The first Cero is one hundred and three centimetres taller than the second. - Quel signore corre la Festa da quarantatré stagioni.
That gentleman has been running the Festa for forty-three seasons. - La basilica di Sant’Ubaldo conserva sessantatré ex voto.
The basilica of Sant’Ubaldo holds sixty-three votive offerings.
Writing ventitre, trentatre without the accent is a real mistake: word processors flag it, teachers correct it, and on the page it looks like a typo. The accent is not optional in these italian cardinal variants. The doctor’s classic instruction dica trentatré (asking a patient to say “thirty-three” so the lungs can be auscultated) is the iconic example: even in a spoken phrase, the written form keeps the accent. The same logic applies to ordinals built from these numbers: ventitreesimo, trentatreesimo drop the accent because the stress has moved.
🎯 Mini-challenge: Add the accent where it belongs (or leave it off).
- Ho ___ (tre) fratelli e ___ (ventitre) cugini.
- Gualtiero ha ___ (trentatre) anni, non ___ (ventitre).
- Sono passati ___ (centotre) giorni dalla Festa.
- Vorrei ___ (tre) caffè, per favore.
- La sua scuola ha ___ (quarantatre) studenti per classe.
👉 Show answers
1. tre fratelli (no accent on standalone), ventitré cugini (accent on compound)
2. trentatré anni, non ventitré (both accented)
3. centotré giorni (accent)
4. tre caffè (no accent on standalone)
5. quarantatré studenti (accent)
Full vs short form: which one to pick
Once you know the variants exist, the question becomes when to use which. The full form (ventuno, trenta, cento) is the neutral, safe option: it works everywhere and is always correct. The short forms (ventun, vent’, cent’) are the natural option in three situations:
- before anni and ore, where the short form is almost a default;
- before any vowel-initial noun in careful written prose;
- in newspaper headlines and posters, where space matters.
For numbers above a hundred, Italian offers another set of italian cardinal variants: the split form. Instead of centouno, you can write cento e uno; instead of milleuno, mille e uno. The split form is particularly common in price quotes: tremila e cinquecento euro, duemila e venti. When the number is split, the noun that follows must be singular: cento e una pagina (not cento e una pagine), trecento e un dollaro. This is a fixed agreement quirk worth memorising.
Quattr’occhi, ventiquattr’ore: fixed expressions
A handful of italian cardinal variants live only inside fixed expressions and never appear in free combinations. The number quattro normally keeps its final -o in quattro amici or quattro persone, but it loses the vowel in a small set of idioms that have become standalone italian cardinal variants in their own right.
- A quattr’occhi Gualtiero confessa di avere paura della salita.
One on one, Gualtiero confesses he is afraid of the climb. - Le ultime ventiquattr’ore prima della corsa sono frenetiche.
The last twenty-four hours before the race are frantic. - Glenda ha sistemato tutto in quattro e quattr’otto.
Glenda sorted everything out in a flash. - Sono passate ventiquattr’ore da quando è arrivata a Gubbio.
Twenty-four hours have passed since she arrived in Gubbio.
Outside these set phrases, quattro stays whole: quattro ore, not quattr’ore. The same applies to lower numbers in general: cinque, sei, sette, nove, dieci do not generate any italian cardinal variants. Memorise the few idioms (a quattr’occhi, ventiquattr’ore, in quattro e quattr’otto) and treat them as vocabulary items, not as a productive rule.
Singular or plural after ventun?
Italian numbers above one always agree with a plural noun: due libri, dieci alabardieri, cento metri. The italian cardinal variants ending in -uno create a small grey area, because the -uno piece itself is grammatically singular. Old grammars permitted ventun anno (singular noun); modern Italian almost always uses the plural: ventun anni, trentun giorni, ventun ceraioli. The plural is also obligatory whenever an adjective or an article is added.
- Ho passato ventun giorni a Gubbio quest’estate.
I spent twenty-one days in Gubbio this summer. - I ventun ceraioli della muta arrivano in cima esausti.
The twenty-one runners in the team reach the top exhausted. - Erano passati ventun bei giorni a casa dei nonni.
Twenty-one lovely days had gone by at the grandparents’ house. - Trentun anni di Festa, e non ne ho persa una.
Thirty-one years of Festa, and I have not missed a single one.
The singular form (ventun anno) does survive in very formal bureaucratic Italian, in items like schede ventuna or moduli ventuno, but you will almost never need it. As a learner working with italian cardinal variants, default to the plural noun and you will be right every time.
Cheat sheet
Use this cheat sheet to pick between the italian cardinal variants at a glance. The decision depends on the noun that follows and on the position of the stress. Keep the table open while you draft any sentence with a number above twenty, and the italian cardinal variants will become reflex within a couple of weeks.
| Situation | Form | Italian example | English |
|---|---|---|---|
| 21, 31, 41 + age | short, no apostrophe | ventun anni | twenty-one years |
| 21, 31 + consonant noun | short or full | trentun libri / trentuno libri | thirty-one books |
| 20, 30, 100 + anni/ore | truncated with apostrophe | vent’anni, cent’anni | twenty years, one hundred years |
| 60, 80 + age (otto-ending) | truncated with apostrophe | sessantott’anni, novantott’anni | sixty-eight years, ninety-eight years |
| 23, 33, 103 (compounds of tre) | acute accent on final é | ventitré, trentatré, centotré | twenty-three, thirty-three, one hundred and three |
| 3 alone | no accent | tre amici | three friends |
| quattro idioms | fixed truncated form | a quattr’occhi, ventiquattr’ore | face to face, twenty-four hours |
| Split form (prices) | cento/mille + e + unit | tremila e cinquecento, mille e una notte | three thousand five hundred, one thousand and one nights |
| Noun after ventun | plural | ventun anni, trentun giorni | twenty-one years, thirty-one days |
Dialogue at the Festa dei Ceri in Gubbio
The dialogue below puts the italian cardinal variants to work in a single scene. Glenda has come up from her home in Cesena to watch the Festa dei Ceri; her friend Gualtiero, a young ceraiolo born in Gubbio, meets her in via dei Consoli a couple of hours before the race up Monte Ingino. Notice how the italian cardinal variants change shape depending on what they bump into: ages, hours, ceraioli counts, and a quoted total all behave differently.
👩🏼🦰 Glenda: Gualtiero, finalmente! Sono arrivata da Cesena dopo cinque ore di treno.
Gualtiero, finally! I arrived from Cesena after five hours on the train.
👨🏼🦰 Gualtiero: Benvenuta a Gubbio. Hai fatto bene a partire presto: oggi in piazza Grande ci sono trentatré alabardieri e una folla incredibile.
Welcome to Gubbio. You did right to leave early: today there are thirty-three halberd-bearers and an unbelievable crowd in piazza Grande.
👩🏼🦰 Glenda: Trentatré? L’anno scorso erano meno, mi pare.
Thirty-three? Last year there were fewer, I think.
👨🏼🦰 Gualtiero: Ventotto. Quest’anno hanno aggiunto cinque ragazzi nuovi, tutti sotto i ventun anni.
Twenty-eight. This year they added five new lads, all under twenty-one.
👩🏼🦰 Glenda: Anche tu sei sotto i ventun anni, no?
You are under twenty-one too, aren’t you?
👨🏼🦰 Gualtiero: Ho appena compiuto ventitré anni. Mio nonno invece ne ha sessantott’anni e corre ancora come capodieci.
I have just turned twenty-three. My grandfather, instead, is sixty-eight and still runs as captain of the team.
👩🏼🦰 Glenda: Sessantott’anni e corre il Cero? Incredibile.
Sixty-eight and he runs the Cero? Incredible.
👨🏼🦰 Gualtiero: A Gubbio è normale. La Festa esiste da novecent’anni circa, e in famiglia la corriamo da quattro generazioni. A casa abbiamo una foto di mio bisnonno del 1948.
In Gubbio it is normal. The Festa has existed for about nine hundred years, and in our family we have been running it for four generations. At home we have a photo of my great-grandfather from 1948.
👩🏼🦰 Glenda: Senti, sul programma ho letto «tremila e cinquecento ceraioli previsti». È un errore di stampa?
Listen, on the programme I read “three thousand five hundred ceraioli expected”. Is it a misprint?
👨🏼🦰 Gualtiero: No, è il totale di tutta la giornata: muta, riserve, accompagnatori. Le ultime ventiquattr’ore qui sembra di stare dentro un formicaio.
No, it is the total for the whole day: team, reserves, helpers. The last twenty-four hours here it feels like being inside an anthill.
👩🏼🦰 Glenda: Possiamo parlare a quattr’occhi un attimo, prima che cominci?
Can we have a quick one-on-one chat before it starts?
👨🏼🦰 Gualtiero: Certo. Andiamo in fondo a via dei Consoli, là è più tranquillo. La corsa parte alle sei in punto, abbiamo ancora cent’anni davanti, come si dice qui.
Of course. Let’s go to the end of via dei Consoli, it is quieter there. The race starts at six sharp, we still have all the time in the world, as they say here.
What to notice in the dialogue
- Trentatré alabardieri / ventitré anni / ventotto: numbers from twenty up are spelled solid (no spaces) and the -tré ending always takes the acute accent.
- Ventun anni twice: short form without apostrophe before the noun anni.
- Sessantott’anni / novecent’anni / cent’anni: vowel-cut with apostrophe before anni; the same trick works for otto, -anta tens and cento.
- Tremila e cinquecento: the split form is the standard way to read out large round-ish numbers, especially money and headcounts.
- Ventiquattr’ore / a quattr’occhi: fixed idioms with quattro truncated; outside these phrases quattro stays whole.
- «Cent’anni davanti»: an idiomatic exaggeration meaning “plenty of time”, common in central Italy.
Mini-challenge
🎯 Final challenge: Translate into natural Italian, choosing the right variant.
- My grandmother is one hundred years old.
- Gualtiero has thirty-three new postcards from Gubbio.
- The last twenty-four hours have been very tiring.
- The festival has existed for about nine hundred years.
- I would like to speak to you one on one.
- Twenty-three runners reached the top of the mountain.
👉 Show answers
1. Mia nonna ha cent’anni. (apostrophe before anni)
2. Gualtiero ha trentatré cartoline nuove da Gubbio. (acute accent on -tré)
3. Le ultime ventiquattr’ore sono state molto stancanti. (fixed idiom)
4. La Festa esiste da novecent’anni circa. (apostrophe before anni)
5. Vorrei parlarti a quattr’occhi. (fixed idiom)
6. Ventitré corridori sono arrivati in cima alla montagna. (accent + plural agreement)
Mastering the italian cardinal variants comes from regular exposure rather than memorising every rule. Read posters, listen to weather forecasts (where ages and centimetres come up constantly), and watch where the apostrophes land in newspaper headlines. Most learners find that the italian cardinal variants click after a couple of weeks of attentive reading. Pair this guide on italian cardinal variants with the quiz below and revisit it after a week to see what stuck.
Test your understanding
Take the quiz below to test what you have learned about the italian cardinal variants. The questions mix all four families: short -uno, apostrophe-cut, accented -tré, and split forms.
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Frequently asked questions
The six questions below cover the italian cardinal variants that come up in every A2 class. The answers focus on the practical decisions you face when writing italian cardinal variants in real Italian. The institutional reference on the acute accent rule for -tré compounds is the Treccani vocabolario entry on ventuno.
Is it ventun anni or ventuno anni?
Both are correct, but ventun anni is the natural choice. Italian prefers to drop the final -o of -uno numbers before a noun beginning with a vowel, and especially before the very frequent words anni and ore. So you will say and write ventun anni, trentun anni, quarantun anni, and so on, with no apostrophe. The full form ventuno anni is not wrong, but it sounds slightly clunky in everyday prose. Before consonants the short form is optional: ventun libri and ventuno libri are equally common.
Do all numbers ending in -tre take the acute accent?
Yes, from twenty-three upward. The compounds ventitré, trentatré, quarantatré, cinquantatré, sessantatré, settantatré, ottantatré, novantatré, centotré, duecentotré all carry an acute accent on the final e because they bear the main word stress. The standalone tre never takes an accent: write tre amici, tre Ceri, tre ore. The rule does not apply to the related ordinal numbers: ventitreesimo, trentatreesimo lose the accent because the stress has shifted to a different syllable. The accent is always acute (é), the same shape used in perché, né, sé.
Why is it vent’anni but not vent’libri?
Because Italian only deletes the final vowel of venti, the -anta tens, otto and cento before a noun that begins with a vowel. Anni starts with a vowel, so vent’anni works; libri starts with a consonant, so venti libri stays whole. The same rule blocks cent’metri and trent’amici as awkward, even though cent’amici is technically possible in a slightly old-fashioned register. The default is: cut the vowel only before vowels, and most naturally before anni and ore. For other vowel-initial nouns, the truncation is allowed but less common in modern prose.
What is the split form cento e uno, mille e uno?
It is an alternative way to write numbers above one hundred: instead of centouno, centodue, milleuno, you can spell them as cento e uno, cento e due, mille e uno, mille e due, tremila e cinquecento. The split form is especially common in price quotes and round-ish counts: tremila e cinquecento euro, duemila e venti partecipanti. There is one agreement quirk: when the split form is used, the noun that follows must be singular. So you write cento e una pagina (not cento e una pagine) and trecento e un dollaro. The compact form (centouno pagine) takes the plural normally.
Why do Italians say sessantott’anni instead of sessantotto anni?
Because the number otto loses its final -o before a vowel, especially before the noun anni. The same vowel-cut works for venti, the -anta tens and cento: vent’anni, trent’anni, cent’anni, sessantott’anni, novant’anni. The cut is marked with an apostrophe because a vowel has been deleted. The reason behind the rule is rhythm: Italian dislikes the sound of two consecutive vowels at a word boundary, and the apostrophe smooths the cadence. In speech you will hear sessantotto anni with a slight glide between the two vowels, but in writing the truncated sessantott’anni is the standard form.
Do I need a singular or plural noun after ventun?
Plural, in modern Italian. Even though the -uno piece at the end of ventun is grammatically singular, the noun that follows almost always goes in the plural: ventun anni, trentun giorni, quarantun corridori, ventun ceraioli. The plural is obligatory whenever an adjective or an article is added: erano passati ventun bei giorni, i ventun ceraioli della muta. The old singular form ventun anno survives only in very formal bureaucratic Italian (schede ventuna, moduli ventuno), which you will almost never need to produce. As a learner, default to the plural and you will be right every time.
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Related guides
- Italian Numbers: Uno, Zero, Mille, Milione (A1): the foundation, how uno, zero and mille behave before the variants kick in.
- Italian Written Accents: Grave vs Acute (A2): why ventitré takes the acute, never the grave.
- Italian Special Ordinals: Undicesimo and Beyond (B1): how ventitré becomes ventitreesimo and loses the accent.
- Italian Dates: How to Say Il 14 Gennaio (A1): cardinal numbers in date expressions.
- Treccani vocabolario: ventuno: institutional entry on the short and full forms.
