🔍 In short. Italian sia sia is the standard way to say “both … and …”: sia il vino sia la birra means “both the wine and the beer”. You can also find e … e (a slightly literary flavour, e il vino e la birra), sia … che (more colloquial, very common in speech), tanto … quanto (balanced, often formal), and vuoi … vuoi (typically for reasons). They all coordinate two equal items and force the verb to the plural when they join two subjects. This B1 guide sorts out italian sia sia from its rivals, with a tasting-room dialogue in Sondrio and a quiz.
Get the pair right and your Italian sentences stop sounding like a list. Italian sia sia is one of the small connective choices that mark a B1 learner moving towards a more native rhythm.
Cosa impareremo oggi
👆🏻 Jump to section
- What italian sia sia really means
- The four ways to say “both … and”
- Sia … sia or sia … che: which one to write
- Verb agreement with two subjects
- Tanto … quanto: the balanced cousin
- E … e: the literary echo
- Vuoi … vuoi: when the items are reasons
- Why italian sia sia does not normally join verbs
- Cheat sheet: italian sia sia and its rivals
- Three common mistakes
- Dialog: a bresaola tasting near Sondrio
- Frequently asked questions
- Related guides
What italian sia sia really means
Sit down in a Valtellina tasting room and you will hear it within a minute: la nostra bresaola si vende sia in Italia sia all’estero, “our bresaola sells both in Italy and abroad”. Italian sia sia is a correlative pair: two little sia tags that mirror each other and bracket two equal items, telling the listener “everything inside this frame counts”. The first sia opens the frame, the second closes it, and the verb on the outside agrees with the whole group.
- In valle si trova sia bresaola sia formaggio Bitto.
In the valley you find both bresaola and Bitto cheese. - Massimo cura sia la stagionatura sia la vendita diretta.
Massimo looks after both the curing and the direct sales. - La rivista pubblica reportage sia di gastronomia sia di alpinismo.
The magazine publishes reportage on both food and mountaineering.
The two items inside italian sia sia must be the same grammatical type: two nouns (sia il vino sia la birra), two adjectives (sia stanca sia affamata), two prepositional phrases (sia a Padova sia a Lucca), two adverbs (sia bene sia velocemente), or two whole clauses. What you cannot do is pair a noun with a verb, or an adjective with a phrase: the parallel breaks and the sentence sounds wrong to native ears.
The four ways to say “both … and”
Italian has more than one frame for “both … and”, and a B1 reader should at least recognise the family. Italian sia sia is the most useful, but the cousins are not interchangeable in register or rhythm.
- e … e: the literary, slightly emphatic form, as in Bevono e il vino e la birra.
- sia … sia: the neutral, all-purpose form, fine in writing and speech, as in Bevono sia il vino sia la birra.
- sia … che: the colloquial twin, very common in speech, less safe in writing, as in Bevono sia il vino che la birra.
- tanto … quanto: the balanced, slightly formal form, useful when you want to feel the two items as a pair, as in Tanto il vino quanto la birra hanno il loro posto a tavola.
Roughly: e … e reads as old-fashioned or stylistic; sia … sia is what a careful Italian writes; sia … che is what most Italians actually say at the bar; tanto … quanto belongs to opinion pieces, essays, and weighed comparisons. A fifth pair, vuoi … vuoi, exists for reasons and motivations (we will see it below). Get italian sia sia right and you have already covered nine cases out of ten.
🔍 One safe default. When in doubt, write italian sia sia. It works in a school exam, in a B1 email, in a CV, in a blog post. The other three forms add flavour you may not control yet, while sia … sia never embarrasses anyone. Save sia … che for the spoken word, e … e for stylistic effect, and tanto … quanto for when you want the two items to feel weighed on a scale.
Sia … sia or sia … che: which one to write
This is the single most asked question about italian sia sia. The short answer: in writing, prefer the doubled form sia … sia. In speech, sia … che is everywhere and no one will correct you. The Accademia della Crusca has accepted sia … che since the early 1800s, so it is not “wrong”; it is simply the form that creates problems when other ches show up nearby.
- Sia il libro che mi hai prestato sia il film che abbiamo visto parlano di Sondrio. (clean: 2 relative che, no third one)
- Sia il libro che mi hai prestato, che il film che abbiamo visto, parlano di Sondrio. (heavy: three che in a row)
That second sentence still parses, but it stumbles. The doubled sia … sia rescues the rhythm by removing the second connective che. Whenever a relative clause sits inside one of the two items, italian sia sia avoids the pile-up. This is precisely the reason Treccani recommends the doubled form in its entry on correlative conjunctions: same meaning, less cacophony.
One more practical note. Some style guides used in Italian publishing houses and newspapers (Einaudi, Treccani’s own house style) ban sia … che in printed prose. If you are writing anything that will be edited (a thesis, an article, a book chapter), use italian sia sia and you stay out of trouble. In a WhatsApp message, the choice does not matter.
Verb agreement with two subjects
When italian sia sia joins two subjects, the verb goes to the plural. This is the same rule English follows with “both A and B”, and it is the trap that learners fall into when they hear the singular-looking sia and copy its number onto the verb.
- Sia Eleonora sia Massimo hanno apprezzato il calice di Sforzato. (two people → plural hanno)
- Sia la verza sia le patate finiscono nei pizzoccheri. (two ingredients → plural finiscono)
- Sia il sindaco di Sondrio sia il presidente del consorzio sono intervenuti alla fiera. (two officials → plural sono)
The gender of the plural verb (where it shows up, as in compound tenses) follows the usual rule for mixed groups: masculine plural wins. Sia Eleonora sia Massimo sono arrivati, not arrivate, because there is a man in the pair. If both subjects are feminine, the feminine plural stays: sia Eleonora sia Caterina sono arrivate. None of this is special to italian sia sia; it is just the regular agreement rule applied to coordinated subjects.
🎯 Mini-task #1. Pick the right verb form.
- Sia Massimo sia suo fratello ___ (lavorare) in malga d’estate.
- Sia il bicchiere di rosso sia quello di bianco ___ (essere) compresi nel menù.
- Sia la bresaola sia il Bitto ___ (venire) prodotti in Valtellina.
- Sia Eleonora sia Caterina ___ (arrivare) ieri sera da Bergamo.
- Sia il tassista sia la receptionist ___ (parlare) inglese.
👉 Show answers
1. lavorano · 2. sono · 3. vengono · 4. sono arrivate (both feminine → fem. plural) · 5. parlano
Tanto … quanto: the balanced cousin
If italian sia sia simply adds two items together, tanto … quanto weighs them on a scale and tells you the two pans hang level. The English equivalent is closer to “as much A as B” than to plain “both”, and you choose it when you want to insist that the two items deserve equal treatment.
- Si vende tanto bresaola affumicata quanto bresaola naturale.
We sell smoked bresaola just as much as plain bresaola. - Tanto la verza quanto le patate finiscono nei pizzoccheri.
The savoy cabbage and the potatoes alike end up in the pizzoccheri. - La crisi ha colpito tanto i piccoli produttori quanto i grossisti.
The crisis hit small producers and wholesalers alike.
You will meet tanto … quanto mostly in writing: editorials, essays, opinion columns. In casual speech an Italian would normally pick italian sia sia (or even sia … che) for the same job. A second, very colloquial variant exists, tanto … che (tanto Paolo che Marco sono felici), but it is best left to spoken use and does not save you anything against the standard pair.
E … e: the literary echo
Italian has had e … e as a “both … and” frame since the Middle Ages, and it survives today with a faintly poetic flavour. You repeat the simple e twice and bracket the two items between them: e il vino e la birra, e a Bergamo e a Brescia. The structure is correct, but a B1 learner should treat it as a stylistic choice rather than a default.
- I pizzoccheri si fanno e con il grano saraceno e con la farina bianca.
Pizzoccheri are made both with buckwheat and with white flour. - Hanno amici e a Bergamo e a Brescia e a Verona.
They have friends in Bergamo, in Brescia and in Verona. - La rivista pubblica articoli e in italiano e in inglese.
The magazine publishes articles both in Italian and in English.
Notice that e … e takes three or more items happily (e a Bergamo e a Brescia e a Verona): you keep adding the conjunction. Italian sia sia does the same trick (sia a Bergamo sia a Brescia sia a Verona), and so does sia … che. The literary feel of e … e comes from the doubled connector at the start, where speech would simply say il vino e la birra.
Vuoi … vuoi: when the items are reasons
A useful side pair: vuoi … vuoi, which works exactly like italian sia sia but is reserved for reasons or motivations. You meet it when a writer wants to list two co-existing causes without ranking them.
- Vuoi per la quota, vuoi per il vento, in alpeggio le mucche si stancano.
What with the altitude, what with the wind, the cows get tired up in the pasture. - Vuoi per pigrizia, vuoi per stanchezza, quella domenica non sono uscita.
Out of laziness or real tiredness, that Sunday I didn’t go out. - Vuoi perché aveva fretta, vuoi perché era nervoso, ha sbagliato strada.
Whether because he was in a hurry or because he was nervous, he took the wrong road.
Outside the “reason” frame, vuoi … vuoi sounds odd: you would not normally say vuoi il vino vuoi la birra for “both wine and beer”. Keep italian sia sia for items, save vuoi … vuoi for the why-clauses.
Why italian sia sia does not normally join verbs
English happily says “she both speaks and writes Japanese”. Italian, oddly, does not stretch its correlatives over two verbs in this way. The natural translation is just parla e scrive il giapponese: one plain e, no frame. Italian sia sia in front of two verbs (sia parla sia scrive il giapponese) is technically possible but sounds stiff and is usually avoided.
- Massimo parla e capisce il valtellinese. (not sia parla sia capisce)
Massimo both speaks and understands the local dialect. - Piove e nevica allo stesso tempo. (not sia piove sia nevica)
It’s both raining and snowing. - Eleonora scrive e fotografa per la rivista.
Eleonora both writes and takes photos for the magazine.
The rescue trick is twofold: either use a single e and trust the reader, or add an adverb that does the work of “both”, such as allo stesso tempo, insieme, contemporaneamente. If you really want a correlative emphasis on two actions, the natural Italian solution is to nominalise: cura sia la lavorazione sia la vendita (italian sia sia + two nouns) rather than sia lavora sia vende.
Cheat sheet: italian sia sia and its rivals
One table to keep open while you draft your next sentence with a “both … and” frame.
| Frame | Register | Best for | Example |
|---|---|---|---|
| sia … sia | neutral, writing-safe | any items, default choice | sia il vino sia la birra |
| sia … che | colloquial | speech, informal writing | sia il vino che la birra |
| e … e | literary, emphatic | stylistic effect, lists of 3+ | e il vino e la birra |
| tanto … quanto | formal, balanced | essays, opinion pieces | tanto il vino quanto la birra |
| vuoi … vuoi | literary, narrative | two reasons or causes | vuoi per il vento, vuoi per la quota |
| non solo … ma anche | neutral, focusing | second item is a surprise | non solo il vino, ma anche la birra |
| verb agreement | n/a | two subjects → plural verb | sia Eleonora sia Massimo sono qui |
| two verbs (avoid sia) | n/a | plain e + adverb | parla e scrive il giapponese |
Three common mistakes
Three slips with italian sia sia tag a B1 sentence as written by a learner. They are easy to fix once you spot them.
Mistake 1. Singular verb after two subjects. Wrong: Sia Eleonora sia Massimo è arrivato. Correct: Sia Eleonora sia Massimo sono arrivati. The two sia tags do not change the count: two subjects need a plural verb, exactly as in English “both A and B are”.
Mistake 2. Mixing categories inside the frame. Wrong: Sia Eleonora sia di Sondrio. The two items must be the same grammatical type. Either sia Eleonora sia Massimo (two nouns) or sia di Sondrio sia di Bergamo (two prepositional phrases), never a noun bracketed with a phrase that does not match it.
Mistake 3. Using italian sia sia on two verbs. Wrong: Sia parla sia scrive il giapponese. Correct: Parla e scrive il giapponese. Italian does not normally bracket two finite verbs with a “both … and” frame; a plain e is the natural choice, or you nominalise into two nouns (cura sia la lavorazione sia la vendita).
🎯 Mini-task #2. Fix the sentence, or confirm it is already correct.
- Sia Massimo sia sua moglie lavora in malga.
- Sia parla sia scrive il valtellinese.
- Sia la bresaola sia il Bitto piace ai turisti.
- Sia Eleonora sia Caterina sono arrivate ieri.
- Tanto Sondrio quanto Tirano si raggiungono in treno.
👉 Show answers
1. lavorano (two subjects → plural) · 2. Parla e scrive il valtellinese (two verbs → plain e) · 3. piacciono (two subjects → plural) · 4. ✓ correct (two fem. subjects → fem. plural) · 5. ✓ correct (tanto…quanto, two subjects, plural verb)
Dialog: a bresaola tasting near Sondrio
Eleonora, a food journalist from Bergamo, walks through Massimo’s curing cellar above Sondrio. They will end up sharing a plate of pizzoccheri. Listen for italian sia sia, sia … che and tanto … quanto in the same conversation: Massimo is a careful speaker and uses all three in their proper homes.
👩🏼🦰 Eleonora: Allora, Massimo, voi qui producete sia bresaola sia formaggio Bitto, giusto?
👨🏽🦱 Massimo: Esatto. La bresaola la curiamo tutto l’anno, mentre il Bitto si fa solo in estate, quando le mucche sono in alpeggio.
👩🏼🦰 Eleonora: E la carne? Arriva sia dalla valle sia da fuori?
👨🏽🦱 Massimo: Cerchiamo di lavorare tanto carne locale quanto carne sudamericana certificata. Il disciplinare lo permette, anche se i puristi storcono il naso.
👩🏼🦰 Eleonora: E la vendita? Voglio capire se vi rivolgete sia ai ristoranti sia ai privati.
👨🏽🦱 Massimo: Vendiamo sia all’ingrosso sia direttamente in bottega. Il sabato qui passano sia turisti che sciatori che curiosi del posto: per noi è la giornata più viva.
👩🏼🦰 Eleonora: Notavo che parla sia italiano sia un po’ di dialetto con i clienti.
👨🏽🦱 Massimo: Vuoi per abitudine, vuoi perché molti anziani preferiscono il valtellinese, mi viene naturale. Mio nonno parlava e capiva solo il dialetto, mio padre invece passava da una lingua all’altra senza problemi.
👩🏼🦰 Eleonora: Mi mostra la stagionatura?
👨🏽🦱 Massimo: Volentieri. Sia la temperatura sia l’umidità qui sono controllate. La bresaola buona vuole sia un clima fresco sia una carne magrissima: senza queste due cose non parte nemmeno.
👩🏼🦰 Eleonora: Per il pranzo c’è qualcosa di tipico?
👨🏽🦱 Massimo: Pizzoccheri, ovviamente. Si fanno sia con il grano saraceno sia con un po’ di farina bianca, e dentro tanto la verza quanto le patate. Sia che li mangi qui in malga sia che li ordini a Sondrio, restano un piatto rustico e onesto.
Count the correlatives in that exchange: Massimo uses italian sia sia six times, sia … che twice in the busy “Saturday” sentence, tanto … quanto twice for paired items, and vuoi … vuoi once for two co-existing reasons. He never brackets two verbs with sia … sia: when he says “parlava e capiva solo il dialetto” he goes back to the plain e, exactly as a native speaker would.
🎯 Mini-challenge. Describe in five short sentences a place you know well (a shop, a workshop, a small business) using italian sia sia twice, tanto … quanto once, and vuoi … vuoi once. Read it out loud and check that the verbs go to the plural whenever the frame brackets two subjects.
Test your understanding
Take the quiz below to test what you have learned about italian sia sia and its rivals.
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Frequently asked questions
Six questions about italian sia sia come up in every B1 class. The answers below draw on real classroom usage and on the Treccani note Congiunzioni correlative.
Should I write sia … sia or sia … che?
In writing, prefer sia … sia. The doubled form is neutral, accepted everywhere, and avoids cacophony with other che that may appear in the sentence (relative clauses, subordinators). In speech, sia … che is extremely common and not wrong: the Accademia della Crusca has accepted it since the early 1800s. Most Italian publishing house style guides (Einaudi, Treccani) still ban sia … che in printed prose, so for a thesis, an article or a CV, use italian sia sia.
Singular or plural verb after sia … sia?
When sia … sia joins two subjects, the verb goes to the plural: sia Eleonora sia Massimo sono arrivati (not e arrivato). The singular shape of the word sia (which happens to coincide with the present subjunctive of essere) does not change the count: two subjects always need a plural verb, exactly as in English both A and B are here. Gender follows the usual mixed-group rule: masculine plural wins when there is at least one masculine subject.
What is the difference between sia … sia and e … e?
E … e is the older, slightly literary form, with a faint poetic flavour: e il vino e la birra. Sia … sia is the modern, neutral, writing-safe default. The two are interchangeable in meaning but not in register: e … e is what you read in essays or older novels, sia … sia is what you write today. In speech, neither is as common as the colloquial sia … che.
Can sia … sia connect two verbs?
Normally no. Italian does not stretch its correlative frames over two finite verbs. The English both speaks and writes Japanese becomes simply parla e scrive il giapponese, with a plain e. Sia parla sia scrive is technically possible but sounds stiff. If you really want the both emphasis on two actions, the natural Italian rescue is to nominalise: cura sia la lavorazione sia la vendita (italian sia sia + two nouns), or add an adverb like allo stesso tempo or insieme.
When do I use tanto … quanto instead of sia … sia?
Choose tanto … quanto when you want to weigh the two items on a scale and insist they deserve equal treatment: tanto la verza quanto le patate finiscono nei pizzoccheri (cabbage and potatoes alike). It is closer to English as much A as B than to plain both, and it lives mostly in writing (essays, editorials, opinion pieces). In casual speech, Italians normally pick italian sia sia or sia … che for the same job, because tanto … quanto would sound a bit formal.
Is there a negative twin of sia … sia?
Yes: né … né, which is the correlative pair for two negative items (neither … nor). Né mangia né beve = he neither eats nor drinks. The two structures mirror each other perfectly: sia … sia adds, né … né subtracts. The word né always carries an acute accent (né, not ne), and the verb stays in the plural with two subjects (né Eleonora né Massimo sono arrivati). See the dedicated guide on Italian né né for the full picture.
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Related guides
Three guides that pair with italian sia sia, plus the institutional reference on correlative pairs.
- Italian Né Né: How to Say ‘Neither Nor’: the negative twin of italian sia sia, with the same correlative slot and opposite polarity.
- Italian Connettivi: Connectors by Function and Register: the broader map of Italian connectors, where italian sia sia sits among the copulative pairs.
- Italian Anzi vs Invece: another pair of B1 connectors, this time adversative rather than copulative.
- Treccani: Congiunzioni correlative: institutional note on the correlative family, including italian sia sia and tanto … quanto.
