Last week, Transparent Language published a blog called Italian Numbers 1-20 Today I’m going to follow that up by looking at what we call le quattro operazioni (the four operations): addition, subtraction, multiplication and division. Here are a few simple examples.

l’addizione (addition):

due più due fa quattro (two plus two equals/makes four)

quindici più tre più due fa venti (fifteen plus three plus two equals/makes twenty)

mi servono due metri di stoffa per la giacca, e un metro e mezzo per la gonna. Allora, due metri più un metro e mezzo fanno tre metri e mezzo (I need two metres of fabric for the jacket, and one and a half metres for the skirt. So two meters plus one and a half makes three and a half metres)

la sottrazione (subtraction):

quattro meno due fa due (four minus two equals/makes two)

venti meno dieci meno dieci fa zero (twenty minus ten minus ten equals/makes zero)

Marco ha quattordici anni e Giorgio ne ha undici. Quanti anni di differenza ci sono fra Marco e Giorgio? (Marco is fourteen years old, and Giorgio is eleven. What’s the difference in age between them?) Vediamo, quattordici meno undici fa tre, quindi Giorgio ha tre anni meno di Marco (Let’s see, fourteen minus eleven makes three, therefore Giorgio is three years younger than Marco)

la moltiplicazione (multiplication):

due per due fa quattro (two times two equals/makes four)

tre per due fa sei, moltiplicato cinque fa trenta (three times two makes six, multiplied by five equals/makes thirty)

la stanza misura tre metri per quattro, tre per quattro fa dodici, per cui mi servono dodici metri quadrati di mattonelle (the room measures three metres by four metres, three by four makes twelve, therefore I need twelve square metres of floor tiles)

la divisione (division):

quattro diviso due fa due (four divided by two equals/makes is two)

venti diviso cinque fa quattro, diviso due fa due (twenty divided by five equals/makes, divided by two equals/makes  two)

ci sono dodici cioccolatini e noi siamo in quattro, dodici diviso quattro fa tre, perciò potete prendere tre cioccolatini a testa (there are twelve chocolates and four of us, twelve divided by four equals/makes  three, so you can have three chocolates each)

Now let’s finish off with a bit of fun. This is a famous song from Lo Zecchino d’Oro, an Italian children’s song competition, called Quarantaquattro Gatti (Forty Four Cats).

Click on the picture to hear part of the song (30 seconds will probably be enough!), and see the text: