E questo è quanto

By Sigrid Lee

People have different ways of concluding a discussion or discourse. In English, we sometimes say, "And that's it," or, "And that's about it," or "That's all there is to it." In Italian, there are various ways to begin or conclude a conversation, but one way to end a conversation where you have shared information is: E questo è quanto.

It has a certain symmetry; There is the e that means "and," and an è that means "is." Then, we have two words with the same number of letters, beginning with qu and ending with o. Italians like these kinds of word pairs.

Noi abbiamo libri di tutti i tipi, tutti i tipi di letteratura, di, di filosofia, di generi, di, di storia, ma siamo molto specializzati su quello che riguarda la storia di Venezia e romanzi che raccontano la città. E questo è quanto, insomma.

We have books of all kinds, all kinds of literature, on, on philosophy, of all kinds, about, about history, but we are very specialized in what concerns the history of Venice and novels that tell about the city. And that's it, in short.

Captions 27-31, In giro per l'Italia Venezia - Part 2
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In the following example, a police team has been discussing how a victim was murdered, and after listing the available information, the coroner says this to conclude:

E questo è quanto.

And that's all we have.

Caption 19, I Bastardi di Pizzofalcone S1EP5 Misericordia - Part 8
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So, depending on the context, the meaning can be just conclusive, or it can mean to say, I've told you everything there is to tell.

The word questo means "this" or "that," so that is pretty clear. But let's dig a little deeper into the word quanto. It has a number of nuances, and can function as an adjective, adverb, or pronoun. In the expression, e questo è quanto, quanto is a pronoun representing "as much as there is." Check out the dictionary to see more about quanto.

We typically use quanto when we want to know how much something costs.

Quanto costa il giubbino? -Trentacinque.

How much does the jacket cost? -Thirty-five.

Caption 19, Serena in un negozio di abbigliamento - Part 2
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We can use it as an adjective to say "how much":

Quanta pasta devo buttare (how much pasta should I throw in [the pot])?

When quanto is used as an adjective, it has to agree with the noun it's modifying, in this case, la pasta.

If the noun is in the plural, quanto also has to have a plural ending and agree with the gender of the noun. In the next example, it modifies anni, the plural of the masculine noun anno (year).

Quanti anni sono che studi?

How many years have you been studying?

Caption 46, La compagnia del cigno EP1 - Part 5
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In the following example, Marika and Anna are talking about recipes. Sometimes a recipe says, when indicating the quantity of something, "Q.b." What does that mean?

Il sale quanto? Q.b. Q. b. -Q.b. Vuol dire quanto basta.

How much salt? Q B. Q B. -Q B. It means "quanto basta" [as needed, to taste].

Captions 33-36, L'Italia a tavola Timballo di cicoria - Part 1
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We also use quanto when commenting on something, either bad or good. It can mean "so." When used as an adverb, as in our final example, its ending doesn't change. In the example, quanto has been truncated, but it's short for quanto è bella.

Ma questa non è la macchina che ci è passata avanti l'altro giorno? -Ma quant'è bella.

But isn't this the car that passed us the other day? -It's so beautiful [how beautiful it is].

Captions 23-25, Imma Tataranni Sostituto procuratore S1 EP5 Rione Serra Venerdì - Part 9
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We have covered the expression e questo è quanto, but there is more to say. Stay tuned for another lesson where we delve even deeper into quanto.