Free Italian Numbers to Words Converter

How the Italian numbers to words converter works

There is one box, and it works both ways. Type a number in digits, such as 28 or 2026, and it appears written out in Italian words: 28 is ventotto and 2026 is duemilaventisei. Negatives work too, so -7 becomes meno sette. After the virgola, the decimal comma, the digits are read as a number, so 3,14 is tre virgola quattordici. Zeros straight after the comma are read one by one, so 0,05 is zero virgola zero cinque, and more than three digits after the comma are read digit by digit. Whole numbers go up to 24 digits, which takes you past the triliardo.

Italian writes the decimal mark as a comma, and that makes one case ambiguous. This page is in English, so 1,500 on its own is read as fifteen hundred and 1.500 as one and a half. When that happens, the converter says so and tells you how to type the other reading. A number such as 3,5 can only be a decimal, so it's read as one.

Each result sits on its own row with a Copy button. The first row, In Italian words, gives the standard form: 21 is ventuno, 101 is centouno, 180 is centottanta and 1987 is millenovecentottantasette. When another spelling is also correct, it's shown underneath. Before otto and ottanta, cento can keep its o, so 108 is centotto or centootto and 180 can be centoottanta. And 21,000 is ventunomila, or ventunmila.

When a number ends on milione or miliardo, a Before a noun row appears. Those two words are nouns, so they take di before the thing they count: un milione di libri, due milioni di libri. Once more digits follow, the di drops, so it's due milioni cinquecentomila libri.

The As money row writes the amount in euros or Swiss francs. Euro doesn't change in the plural, so 21.50 euros is ventuno euro e cinquanta centesimi. One euro is un euro, one cent is un centesimo and a million euros is un milione di euro. Swiss francs are franchi and centesimi, so 2.05 francs is due franchi e cinque centesimi, and one franc is un franco.

From 1 to 1,000,000 you also get the ordinal, masculine and feminine, with its abbreviation: primo and prima, 1º and 1ª. The first ten have their own words, from primo, secondo and terzo up to decimo. After that, you take the number, drop its last vowel and add -esimo: undicesimo, ventesimo, ventunesimo, ventottesimo, centesimo, millesimo. A few keep the vowel, so ventitré becomes ventitreesimo and ventisei becomes ventiseiesimo. The 2000th is duemillesimo, with a double l, though 2000 is duemila. The 1,000,000th is milionesimo.

The converter also reads Italian back into digits. Type ventotto and you get 28. It takes centotto or centootto, centuno, ventunmila, un milione e duecentomila, a trailing di, a capital at the start, and words typed with spaces. Slips get a note. Ventitre and ventitrè need an acute accent, because tre takes one at the end of a longer number. Ventiotto and venti otto get a note that the tens lose their last vowel before uno and otto. Venti cinque and due mila are written as one word. Duemille gets an explanation: 1000 is mille, but 2000 and up use mila. Unmila gets one too, because 1000 is plain mille. Type an ordinal such as terzo and it asks you to type the cardinal number instead.

How to write Italian numbers from 1 to 100

Each number up to 19 has its own word. After zero, uno, due and the rest up to dieci come undici, dodici, tredici, quattordici, quindici and sedici. Then the order flips and the ten comes first: diciassette, diciotto, diciannove. The tens are venti, trenta, quaranta, cinquanta, sessanta, settanta, ottanta and novanta.

Between the tens, Italian puts the units after the tens and writes the whole number as one word: trentadue, quarantacinque, novantanove. It's the order English uses, minus the hyphen.

Two things change at the join, and the next section covers both: the tens lose their last vowel before uno and otto, and tre takes an accent. Then 100 is cento. With those rules you can write all the Italian numbers from 1 to 100 in words. That's also the quiz's default range.

Ventuno, ventotto and ventitré

Uno and otto start with a vowel, so the tens drop their own last vowel in front of them. 21 is ventuno, not ventiuno, and 28 is ventotto, not ventiotto. The same happens all the way up: trentotto, ottantotto. Cento is looser, so 108 can be centotto or centootto, and the converter and the quiz accept both.

Tre takes an acute accent when it ends a longer number: ventitré, centotré, milletré. On its own it's tre, and inside a number it stays tre, as in tremila. The accent is é, not è. The converter reads ventitre and ventitrè with a note, and the quiz marks them Almost.

Hundreds, thousands and millions in Italian

Cento doesn't change, so 200 is duecento. Mille does. One thousand is mille, but from 2000 it becomes mila: duemila, tremila, centomila. So duemille is wrong, and so is unmila.

Below a million, Italian writes a number as one word, however long it gets. So 2026 is duemilaventisei, and 999,999 is novecentonovantanovemilanovecentonovantanove. That's 44 letters with no spaces, and it's correct. From a million up, the words split, because milione and miliardo are nouns. They're written apart and take a plural, so 1,000,000 is un milione and 2,300,000 is due milioni trecentomila. Like any noun, they take un rather than uno, the same as un euro.

Italian uses the long scale, so its big number words don't match English. Un miliardo is 10 to the power of 9, which English calls a billion. An Italian bilione is 10 to the power of 12, an English trillion. After that come the biliardo (10 to the power of 15), the trilione (10 to the power of 18) and the triliardo (10 to the power of 21). So an Italian figure in bilioni is a figure in English trillions. If you translate numbers for work, check this one twice.

Years in Italian

Italian has no special form for years. A year is said like any other number, so 1987 is millenovecentottantasette and 2026 is duemilaventisei. That makes for long words, but there's nothing extra to learn. The quiz has a years range from 1900 to 2099 if you want to practice them.

Italian numbers practice

Below the converter is a practice mode that works as an Italian numbers quiz. Pick a range: 0 to 20, 0 to 100, 100 to 1,000, 1,000 to 1,000,000, or the years 1900 to 2099. It starts on 0 to 100. Then pick a direction. You either see the digits and type the Italian words, or read the Italian words and type the digits. There's a button for é, so you don't need an Italian keyboard. Each answer is marked at once, and a running count of right and wrong, with your percentage, stays on screen.

Centotto and centootto are both accepted, and so are ventunomila and ventunmila, with or without a capital. Small slips get “Almost”: a missing or grave accent on tré, or a space inside the one word. Ventiuno and trentaotto are marked wrong with a note on the dropped vowel, and duemille with a note on mila. When there's another correct spelling, the answer shows it too. Press Stop to see your score and the numbers you missed, then “Practice my mistakes” goes through just those. There's no audio, so the quiz won't help with how Italian numbers sound.

If you're working on the rest of your Italian as well, the Italian verb conjugation worksheets print exercises with an answer key, and the Italian verb conjugation tables give every form of a verb on one page.

Number converters in seven other languages

Each of these works both ways, from digits to words and from words back to digits. Each one also has money, ordinals and a practice quiz, and they're all free.

• Spanish numbers to words converter
• French numbers to words converter
• German numbers to words converter
• Portuguese numbers to words converter
• Russian numbers to words converter
• Japanese number converter
• Korean number converter

Frequently asked questions