Italian · Chapter 8 · Lesson 8 · Grammar primer
Ci and ne
Two small words that stand in for whole phrases, which is how Italians avoid repeating themselves.
The short version
Ho due is not a full answer in Italian
Whenever a number or an amount stands without its noun, Italian adds ne, the of them English usually leaves out. Asked how many brothers you have, you say ne ho due, never just ho due. It is the commonest ne mistake English speakers make, and it lasts for years because the sentence is so nearly right.
Quanti fratelli hai? Ne ho due.
It is ce n'è, never c'è ne
When ci and ne meet, ci turns into ce and both go before the verb, so there is one of them is ce n'è and there are three is ce ne sono. Plenty of Italians write c'è ne online, because it looks like c'è with something after it. It is still wrong, and getting it right puts your Italian ahead of theirs.
Ce ne sono tre.
That's the gist. The full article goes deeper - more examples, the edge cases, the why - and the practice below scores like a vocabulary session and earns the same XP.
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