Learn 10 ways to say hello
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| Hi guys! Welcome to ItalianPod101.com! My name is Ilaria. Nice to meet you, or nice to see you again. Today we're going to talk about a very easy topic, something that you must learn if you're going to Italy, which is the Top 10 Ways to Say Hello. |
| So let's start! |
| 1. Buongiorno. "Good morning." |
| You can also say - salve. |
| Salve. |
| It's a more generic word that you can use at any time of the day, and it's quite generic, so - salve, is something that is very polite, and at the same time, you can use it all the time during the day. So when you meet someone, let's say, you say salve. So the person is going to say to you - salve, or buongiorno. |
| 2. Ciao. "Hello." |
| I think everyone knows the word ciao, you know. Ciao is quite informal, so you don't really say ciao to older people or the people that you don't know really. So you can use ciao with your friends, but also, let's say, if you're going to a restaurant, to a shop, and you want to say to the person who's working - Grazie, ciao. Thanks, goodbye. You know, it works. |
| Because ciao, you can use ciao as "hello" when you meet someone, but also as "goodbye". So it's another very generic word like salve. |
| 3. Non ci vediamo da tanto tempo. "Long time no see." |
| You can also say - da quanto tempo non ci vediamo! |
| So, it's been a very long time that we haven't seen each other. |
| 4. Come ti sei trovato? "How have you been?" |
| Which is also, you can say, come è andata? |
| Come è andata? |
| Which is pretty much the same. You can use it, let's say, your friend goes to... your Italian friend goes to somewhere for vacation and you want to ask him how the trip was, you can say - come to è andata? |
| Which is come ti sei trovato? "How have you been?" |
| It's pretty much the same. |
| 5. Come va oggi? "How's your day?" |
| Come va oggi? |
| Oggi is "today." |
| 6. Che si dice? "What's up?" |
| Che si dice? which is like "What's up?" |
| Che si dice? is very informal and it's more like a kind of slang, an Italian slang. It's not like proper formal Italian, so you say - come stai. |
| Che si dice? is more... still, if you meet your friends, you know, you have a very informal way to say things to each other, you don't speak like high Italian, you know. |
| So che si dice is pretty much used for saying "how are you, how is your life?" It's the same as - come va? and come stai? |
| 7. Buon pomeriggio. "Good afternoon." |
| 8. Come stai? "How are you?" |
| Usually, Italian people, we use it to say when we meet our friends, ciao, come stai? which means "Hello, how are you?" |
| But you can also say - ciao, come va? "Hello, how are you?" |
| come va? is the same as come stai? |
| 9. Piacere di conoscerti. "It's nice to meet you." |
| You can also say, è stato un piacere conoscerti, when you meet someone for the first time, and you like the person, you say "it has been nice to meet you." Which is different than "nice to meet you," which is when you actually meet the person for the first time, you say, piacere. |
| You can also say just piacere, you know, when you give a hand to a person you're meeting. Say just, piacere. |
| And the person might answer to you - piacere mio, which is "my pleasure." |
| 10. Come vanno le cose? "How's everything?" |
| So Come vanno le cose refers to something really general, so how is your life in general. But it's used quite a lot in Italy, this phrase. |
| Come vanno le cose? |
| And with this very nice phrase, we actually reached the end of our lesson, the Top 10 Ways to Say Hello in Italian. |
| Thanks very much for listening. Here's Ilaria at ItalianPod101.com |
| And guys, I'll see you in the next lesson. Bye-bye! Take care. |
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