Lesson 5 : “Ne” particle
As requested by a lovely reader here’s a post in which I try to explain when this particle is used in Italian.
This topic is quite hard but I’ll try to make it as easy as possible!
Well ne is called a pronominal particle and this means that it is used as a substitute for something else. But what does it substitute?
We know many verbs have a preferred preposition :
e.g : to talk about
when this preposition is followed by a noun or personal pronoun then there’s no problem and in Italian it works just in the same way :
I talk about my family = parlo della mia famiglia [parlare di (di + la = della)]
But when we assume the other person knows what’s the topic and we use a pronoun instead (as in : yes, I talk about it ) , then here is when “ne” comes in action
yes, I talk about it = si, ne parlo --> here ne stands for <della mia famiglia>
This mechanism however doesn’t work for every kind of verb. It seems to work only for verbs which prefer di and da as prepositions.
e. g : ricavare da = to obtain from, to take out from --> Cosa ne hai ricavato? (= what did you obtain from it?) .
!! Please don’t confuse this with the pronouns used for transitive verbs ! Transitive verbs have their own pronouns in the “accusative form”
I haven’t seen him = non lo ho visto
I can’t see her = non la vedo
I won’t see it = non lo (if the noun is masculine)/la (if the noun is feminine) vedrò
I can’t see them = non li (masculine) / le (feminine) vedo
Anyways sometimes transitive verbs can be tricky because in some cases they allow the ne particle ---> this is the case of the partitive (we’ve seen it with partitive articles)
Partitive indicates an indefinite amount of an item, a part of something or no parts of something at all (when it’s in the negative form)
we’ve already seen this example : vorrei delle mele (I’d like some apples)
now if someone asks : vuoi delle mele? (do you want some apples?) it would be useless to repeat the word for apple again, it’s obvious what we’re talking about, so we just say :
Sì, ne voglio (due, tre, alcune...) = yes, I want (2, 3, some..) of them
or No, non ne voglio = I don’t want them
> Therefore even if volere (to want) is a transitive verb we use the ne particle when it occurs with partitive sentences.
As you can see the partitive article is still formed by the preposition di so it’s not completely different from what we already know!
In partitive constructions you can also simply use the accusative pronouns shown below : vuoi delle mele? --> no, non le voglio/ sì le voglio --> but in this case it would be referred to those specific object and not more in general.
When followed by a numeral or words like some, many , nothing etc.. --> then you must use the NE particle
Some examples :
I bought some books = ho comprato dei libri (dei = partitive article!)
> how many books did you buy ? = quanti libri hai comprato?
> I bought 3 books = ne ho comprati 3
here you cannot use the simple pronouns because we added a numeral
How many beers does he drink in a day? = Quante birre beve in un giorno?
> he drinks a lot of them = ne beve tante
here you cannot use the simple pronouns because we added tante which means many
Do you watch horror films? = guardi film horror?
> I don’t watch them = non ne guardo / non li guardo
here you can use both the alternatives because there are no numerals
I don’t know = non lo so
I don’t know nothing about = non ne so niente
I’m sure you know something about this = sono sicuro che ne sai qualcosa
Last but not least : do not confuse ne with né. Né with an accent mark means neither, nor, not even
(the pronunciation is although the same)
e.g. : non mi piace né la pasta né la pizza = i like neither pasta nor pizza
SO the particle ne is used :
With verbs that have di and da as prepositions
With partitive constructions
I hope this wasn’t too messy or complicated ! 💕