It seems to me that in Italian the word for "carrying out a mobile phone top-up" (UK) or "carrying out a mobile phone refill" (US), i.e., adding credit to a mobile phone's network operator account, is the same as the word for "recharging a mobile phone", i.e., connecting a mobile phone to a source of electricity to make sure the battery has enough charge:
ricaricare
So, what's the best way to construct a sentence in Italian so as to make it clear whether "ricaricare" means topping up / refilling or recharging?
ricarico il telefono
you mean topping-up it and either by specifyingla batteria
or by usingcaricare
to mean a physical recharge.ricaricare
can be used with the meaning oftopping-up
, whereascaricare
can be used with the meaning ofcharging the battery
.