Esercizi di famiglia in italiano con il metodo natura

What does “figli” mean in Italian?

In Italian, one son is “figlio” and one daughter is “figlia.” When you talk about more than one, the form you pick carries information: “figlie” means daughters only, while “figli” works for sons or for a mixed group of boys and girls together. So a couple with two boys and two girls has “quattro figli” — four children — even though only two of them are “figlie.” The masculine plural quietly stands in for the whole family.

The clip lays it out clearly: “Carlo e Teresa Rossi hanno 4 figli” (four children in all), yet when asked “Quante figlie hanno?” the answer is “2” — two daughters. Same family, two numbers, because “figli” counts everyone and “figlie” counts only the girls. The pattern follows regular Italian endings: figlio / figlia in the singular, figli / figlie in the plural, all from Latin “filius” (son, child). You’ll meet the same logic with “ragazzi” for a mixed group of young people and “bambini” for a mix of kids — the -i ending does double duty as both masculine and mixed.