{"id":2267,"date":"2012-09-03T10:55:49","date_gmt":"2012-09-03T10:55:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/italian\/?p=2267"},"modified":"2012-09-03T13:21:18","modified_gmt":"2012-09-03T13:21:18","slug":"tu-and-lei-revisited","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/italian\/tu-and-lei-revisited\/","title":{"rendered":"Tu and Lei Revisited"},"content":{"rendered":"

Last year, Serena wrote a couple of blogs about the use of Tu<\/strong> and Lei<\/strong> (click on text to open links)<\/font><\/em>: Part 1<\/font><\/strong><\/a>, Part 2<\/font><\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

Those blogs explained that in Italian we have two main forms of addressing people: the informal tu<\/strong> and the formal lei<\/strong>. We normally use tu<\/strong> with family, friends, and children. Lei<\/strong> is used with people we don\u2019t know, and professionals, such as doctors, lawyers, the police etc. This time round I\u2019m going to give you a couple of everyday examples which demonstrate the grammatical and structural differences between the two forms. In the following examples the informal is highlighted in red<\/font> and the formal in blue<\/font>. <\/font><\/p>\n

Let\u2019s begin with a simple e-mail:<\/font><\/p>\n

Informal:<\/font><\/p>\n

Ciao<\/font> Luca, come stai<\/font>? \u00c8 da un po\u2019 di tempo che non ti<\/font> sento. Hai<\/font> mai finito quel corso di inglese? Mi farebbe tanto piacere rivederti<\/font> quest\u2019altra settimana quando vengo gi\u00f9 a Sarzana. Pensi<\/font> che possa venire a trovarti<\/font> cos\u00ec che possiamo praticare assieme l\u2019inglese? Scommetto che oramai te la cavi<\/font> bene, vero?<\/p>\n

Un abbraccio da Geoff<\/p>\n

Formal:<\/font><\/p>\n

Salve<\/font> Sig. Rossi, come sta<\/font>? \u00c8 da un po\u2019 di tempo che non la<\/font> sento. Ha<\/font> mai finito quel corso di inglese? Mi farebbe tanto piacere rivederla<\/font> quest\u2019altra settimana quando vengo gi\u00f9 a Sarzana. Pensa<\/font> che possa venire a trovarla<\/font> cos\u00ec che possiamo praticare assieme l\u2019inglese? Scommetto che oramai se la cava<\/font> bene, vero?<\/p>\n

Cordiali saluti da Geoff Chamberlain<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Now a phone call:<\/p>\n

Informal:<\/font><\/p>\n

Ciao bella<\/font>, come va<\/font>? \u2026 io male, ho ancora quel raffreddore \u2026 s\u00ec, grazie. Senti cara<\/font>, mi faresti<\/font> un piacere? Puoi<\/font> fare un salto in farmacia a prendermi le pastiglie per la tosse? \u2026 ah hai<\/font> l\u2019appuntamento alle dieci \u2026 cosa hai<\/font> detto? ti <\/font>sento male \u2026 oh, va bene, ho capito, ci vediamo pi\u00f9 tardi allora .. s\u00ec s\u00ec stai <\/font>tranquilla, non ti preoccupare<\/font> non mi alzo per adesso \u2026 o.k. ciao ciao<\/font> \u2026 s\u00ec grazie, ciao bella<\/font>.<\/p>\n

Formal:<\/font><\/p>\n

Buongiorno Signora<\/font> Rosanna, come sta<\/font>? \u2026 io male, ho ancora quel raffreddore \u2026 s\u00ec, grazie. Senta<\/font>, mi potrebbe<\/font> fare un piacere per favore<\/font>? Potrebbe<\/font> fare un salto in farmacia a prendermi le pastiglie per la tosse? \u2026 ah ha<\/font> l\u2019appuntamento alle dieci \u2026 cosa ha<\/font> detto scusi<\/font>? la <\/font>sento male \u2026 oh, va bene, ho capito, ci vediamo pi\u00f9 tardi allora .. s\u00ec s\u00ec stia <\/font>tranquilla<\/font>, non si preoccupi<\/font> non mi alzo per adesso \u2026 o.k. salve<\/font> \u2026 s\u00ec grazie, salve signora<\/font>.<\/p>\n

You\u2019ll notice that, apart from the direct grammatical changes associated with the informal and formal modes, the tone of the language has also been modified to reflect a more polite attitude in the formal versions. For example, in the phone conversation \u2018come va<\/font>\u2019 (how\u2019s it going) has been substituted by \u2018come sta<\/font>?\u2019 (how are you?), and \u2018mi faresti<\/font> un piacere?\u2019 (would you do me a favour?) becomes \u2018mi potrebbe<\/font> fare un piacere per favore<\/font>?\u2019 (could you do me a favour please?).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Last year, Serena wrote a couple of blogs about the use of Tu and Lei (click on text to open links): Part 1, Part 2 Those blogs explained that in Italian we have two main forms of addressing people: the informal tu and the formal lei. We normally use tu with family, friends, and children…<\/p>\n

Continue Reading<\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"author":90,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"content-type":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[229110,229111],"class_list":["post-2267","post","type-post","status-publish","hentry","category-grammar","tag-tu-or-lei","tag-using-the-formal-and-informal-in-italian"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/italian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2267","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/italian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/italian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/italian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/90"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/italian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2267"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/italian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2267\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2269,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/italian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2267\/revisions\/2269"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/italian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2267"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/italian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2267"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/italian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2267"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}