The first time someone asks you quanto ti devo? in Italian, you might be a little confused.

The verb dovere usually means ‘to have to’, ‘must’, or ‘ought to/should’ in English, while quanto means ‘how much’ and ti is the object pronoun for tu, the singular ‘you’ – so if you’re translating as you go along, you’ll likely understand something along the lines of ‘how much should I to you?’

Of course, that makes no sense – but reaching for the dictionary, you’ll find one more, less widely-used definition of dovere: to owe.

Quanto ti devo?, then, simply means ‘How much do I owe you?’

You’ll most often hear this meaning of dovere used in reference to money, or favours.

Ho pagato per i biglietti, mi dovete 10 euro a testa.
I paid for the tickets, you owe me 10 euros each.

Chiederò ad Angela di darci un passaggio, mi deve un favore.
I’ll ask Angela to give us a ride, she owes me a favour.

But – just like ‘owe’ – dovere can also be used in a more abstract sense, to talk about something being ‘owing’ to something or someone else.

Deve a me tutta la sua carriera, potrebbe essere più riconoscente.
He owes his entire career to me, he could be more grateful.

Questa organizzazione deve la sua intera esistenza a lei.
This organisation owes its entire existence to her.

If you want to say ‘I owe you one’, you can say te ne devo una (ne being a pronoun that means ‘of it’ or ‘of them’, and una of course meaning ‘one’).

Grazie Ale, te ne devo una.
Thanks Ale, I owe you one.

Remember that dovere should conjugate with the person or people who are doing the owing (the subject), rather than the person who is owed (the object). 

Though it can be used with other tenses, the vast majority of the times dovere is used in this sense, it’s in the present simple or past continuous forms.

Gli doveva parecchi soldi.
She owed them a lot of money.

Le dobbiamo delle scuse.
We owe her an apology.

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