Italian Demonstrative Adjectives: questo and quello

Italian has two words for pointing something out, and they do not carry equal weight. questo, this, agrees like any ordinary adjective and stops there. quello, that, agrees too, but it also declines like the definite article in front of the noun, which means learning it is really learning the il/lo/la system a second time, wearing a different hat.

Questo: near the speaker, four regular forms

questo points at something close, physically or in the conversation: something you are holding, looking at, or just mentioned.

It behaves exactly like a regular -o adjective: four forms, one ending change for each of gender and number, nothing to memorise beyond the pattern you already know from words like piccolo.

The optional elision before a vowel

Before a noun starting with a vowel, questo and questa may shorten to quest', dropping the final vowel:

Quest'anno vado in Italia. - This year I'm going to Italy.

Quest'amica studia con me. - This friend studies with me.

Both questo anno and quest'anno are heard, and neither is wrong; the apostrophe is a matter of style and flow, not a rule the way it is for the article l'.

Quello: further away, and it declines like the article

quello means that, pointing at something further off, already mentioned, or contrasted with something nearer. Its forms in front of a noun are not simple gender-and-number agreement: they track the first sound of the following word, exactly as il, lo, l', la, i, gli and le do. Italian articles sets out that system in full; quello maps onto it form for form.

The trigger is the same one that decides between il and lo: most consonants get quel; s plus another consonant, z, gn, ps or y get quello (quello studente, quello yogurt); any vowel gets quell', masculine or feminine, singular only. In the plural, i-type words get quei, gli-type words (vowels and the same consonant clusters) get quegli, and every feminine plural gets quelle regardless of the following sound.

Quello studente parla bene l'italiano. - That student speaks Italian well.

Non mi piacciono quegli anni. - I don't like those years.

Quell'uomo è il padre di Maria. - That man is Maria's father.

This is the Higher-tier part of the structure: recognising and producing the full quello paradigm, rather than just the common quel/quella forms, is what the Pearson Edexcel specification lists separately at Higher.

Why quello behaves this way

Historically, quello comes from the same Latin demonstrative that gave Italian its definite article, so the two systems are cousins rather than coincidences. Once you have the article's shape-shifting rule automatic, quello costs you almost nothing extra: swap il for quel, lo for quello, l' for quell', and so on straight down the table.

Near and far work together: qui/qua and lì/là

questo and quello are not the only words in Italian that split near from far. The place adverbs do the same job for locations, and pairing them up makes both easier to remember: qui and qua both mean here, lì and là both mean there, and each pair sits alongside the demonstrative that matches its distance.

Questo libro, qui. - This book, here.

Quel libro, lì. - That book, there.

Using questo with qui/qua and quello with lì/là in the same sentence is entirely natural and common in speech, especially when physically pointing something out, and it reinforces exactly the distinction the two demonstratives already carry.

Choosing in a shop: a common exam context

Questo and quello turn up constantly in GCSE speaking and writing tasks set in a shop, because pointing at one item rather than another is precisely what the words are for:

Vorrei provare questo maglione. - I'd like to try on this jumper.

Preferisco quella giacca. - I prefer that jacket.

Quanto costa quel cappello? - How much does that hat cost?

A shop assistant holding up two options is the clearest real-world reason to have both words correct: questo for whatever is nearest to hand, quello, correctly declined for the noun's first sound, for the alternative across the counter.

Mistakes English speakers make

Treating quello like a normal adjective. English has one word, that, for every noun, so the instinct is to reach for one Italian form too. Writing quello libro instead of quel libro, or quello amico instead of quell'amico, is the single most common error with this structure, and it comes directly from not checking the noun's first sound.

Forgetting the plural split. quei and quegli follow the same i/gli logic as the masculine plural article, and learners who have not drilled gli tend to default to quei everywhere, producing quei studenti where quegli studenti is correct.

Making quello optional before a vowel, like questo. quest'amico is a stylistic choice; quell'amico is not. Writing quello amico is wrong in a way that questo amico is not.

Mixing up near and far. questo and quello are not interchangeable stylistic variants of "this/that" the way some English speakers use them loosely; questo genuinely marks something near or just mentioned, quello something distant or already established, and Italian keeps that distinction alive in a way spoken English often does not.

Confusing the adjective with the pronoun. questo/quello in front of a noun are covered here; standing alone, without a noun right after them, they work as pronouns instead, this one, that one. A learner who has only drilled the adjective use sometimes hesitates over a sentence like Questo è vero, this is true, unsure whether an agreement rule applies. It does not: there is no noun for it to agree with, because there, questo is the whole subject.

In storytelling: quel giorno, quella sera

quello has a second life at the start of narrative sentences, setting a scene at a specific moment already established by the story rather than pointing at a physical object in the room. Reading passages and graded stories lean on this constantly:

Quel giorno pioveva. - That day it was raining.

Quella sera, Marco non è uscito. - That evening, Marco didn't go out.

The grammar is identical to every other use of quello on this page, agreement and declension both included, and reading it fluently is mostly a matter of recognising the pattern instantly rather than working it out sentence by sentence.

Why this matters beyond the exam

Pointing something out is one of the first things any learner needs to do in real conversation, before the vocabulary to describe it in detail even arrives, and questo/quello are how Italian does it. GCSE speaking exams lean on exactly this: describing a photo, choosing between two options, correcting a shopkeeper's assumption about which item you meant. questo rarely goes wrong, because it barely changes; quello is the one examiners can distinguish a careful candidate on, because getting quel, quello, quell', quei and quegli right in the moment, under time pressure, in speech rather than on paper, is a genuinely harder skill than reciting the table on a calm afternoon.

Quick reference

Keep this table next to the article table while you drill: the two run in lockstep, row for row.

What to practise

Drill questo first, since it is a two-minute job: one ending change for gender, one for number, done. Then build the quello table by reciting it alongside the article table it mirrors, il/quel, lo/quello, l'/quell', la/quella, i/quei, gli/quegli, le/quelle, until picking the right form is as automatic as picking the right article already is. Italian articles is the page to revisit if that automaticity is not there yet, and the Italian course drills both words in full sentences once the pattern holds.