{"id":2324,"date":"2012-09-26T08:42:42","date_gmt":"2012-09-26T08:42:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/italian\/?p=2324"},"modified":"2012-09-26T08:42:42","modified_gmt":"2012-09-26T08:42:42","slug":"pronomi-personali-formali-ed-informali","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/italian\/pronomi-personali-formali-ed-informali\/","title":{"rendered":"Pronomi Personali Formali ed Informali"},"content":{"rendered":"

The use of formal and informal personal pronouns is a subject that needs revisiting often, especially if your mother tongue is English and you are not used to using these two forms of addressing people. In this post I\u2019m going to concentrate on the ways in which we use the formal and informal pronouns when talking about \u2018you\u2019 (singular) in Italian.<\/font><\/p>\n

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1. Lei <\/strong>(you, formal<\/em><\/font>) or Tu <\/strong>(you, informal<\/font><\/em>):<\/font><\/pre>\n<\/div>\n
these two pronouns are used as verb subjects, meaning that they do the action, e.g. Io prendo un caff\u00e8 macchiato, e lei cosa prende?<\/strong> (I\u2019ll have a caff\u00e8 macchiato and you, what will you have? f<\/font>ormal<\/font><\/em>) or \u2026.. e tu cosa prendi?<\/strong> (and you, what will you have? i<\/font>nformal<\/font><\/em>); Io sto bene, grazie, e lei? <\/strong>(I\u2019m well, thank you, and you? f<\/font>ormal<\/font><\/em>) or Io sto bene, grazie, e tu? <\/strong>(I\u2019m well, thank you, and you? Informal<\/em><\/font>)<\/font><\/p>\n
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2. Preposition<\/strong> followed by lei <\/strong>(you, formal<\/font><\/em>) or te <\/strong>(you, informal<\/font><\/em>):<\/font><\/pre>\n<\/div>\n
when using a preposition such as per <\/strong>(for), con <\/strong>(with), di <\/strong>(of\/about), a <\/strong>(to) etc., it should always be followed by either lei <\/strong>(you formal<\/font><\/em>) or te <\/strong>(you informal<\/font><\/em>), e.g. Signor Rossi, c\u2019\u00e8 una lettera per lei<\/u> <\/strong>(Mr Rossi, there\u2019s a letter for you, formal<\/font><\/em>) or Mario, c\u2019\u00e8 una lettera per te<\/u> <\/strong>(Mario, there\u2019s a letter for you, informal<\/font><\/em>); Il direttore mi ha parlato molto bene di lei<\/u> <\/strong>(The director told me very good things about you, formal<\/font><\/em>) or Il direttore mi ha parlato molto bene di te<\/u> <\/strong>(The director told me very good things about you, informal<\/font><\/em>)<\/font><\/p>\n
3. Le <\/strong>(to you, formal<\/font><\/em>) or ti <\/strong>(to you, informal<\/font><\/em>):<\/p>\n
these two forms are called indirect pronouns, and they are used instead of a lei <\/strong>(to you, formal<\/font><\/em>) or a te <\/strong>(to you, informal<\/font><\/em>). A lei\/a te is used to add emphasis to \u2018you<\/u>\u2019 especially when talking about likes and dislikes, e.g.  a me non piace il caff\u00e8, mentre a lei<\/u> piace, vero? <\/strong>(I don\u2019t like coffee, but you<\/u> do, don\u2019t you? formal<\/font><\/em>). Yet if you want to simply ask \u2018do you like coffee?\u2019, formal,<\/em> <\/font>you would say le piace il caff\u00e8? <\/strong>(do you like coffee? formal<\/em><\/font>). The same goes for the informal:  a me non piace il caff\u00e8 ma <\/strong>a te<\/u> piace, vero?<\/strong>(I don\u2019t like coffee, but you<\/u> do, don\u2019t you? informal<\/font><\/em>).  <\/strong>Otherwise just use the simple question ti piace il caff\u00e8?<\/strong> (do you like coffee? informal<\/font><\/em>). Another example would be: Signor Belli, ho <\/strong>bisogno di parlare a lei<\/u> soltanto <\/strong>(Mr Belli, I need to talk to you<\/u> alone, formal<\/font><\/em>), or Signor Belli, ho bisogno di parlarle<\/font><\/strong> (Mr Belli, I need to talk to you, formal<\/font><\/em>),  Mario, ho bisogno di parlare prima a Giovanni, poi a te <\/strong>(Mario, I need to talk first to Giovanni, then to you<\/u>, informal<\/font><\/em>), or Mario, ho bisogno di parlarti <\/strong>(Mario, I need to talk to you, informal<\/font><\/em>)<\/p>\n
4. La <\/strong>(you, formal<\/em><\/font>) or ti <\/strong>(you, informal<\/font><\/em>):<\/p>\n
these two pronouns are direct objects, e.g. La ringrazio <\/strong>(I thank you, formal<\/em><\/font>) or ti ringrazio<\/strong> (I thank you, informal<\/font><\/em>); spero di rivederla presto <\/strong>(I hope to see you again soon, formal<\/em><\/font>) or spero di rivederti presto <\/strong>(I hope to see you again soon, informal<\/font><\/em>)<\/p>\n
5. Si <\/strong>(yourself, formal<\/em><\/font>) or ti <\/strong>(yourself, informal<\/font><\/em>)<\/p>\n
these two are reflexive pronouns, e.g. si sente bene? <\/strong>(Do you feel okay? formal<\/em><\/font>) or ti senti bene? <\/strong>(Do you feel okay? informal<\/font><\/em>); vuole lavarsi le mani? <\/strong>(Would you like to wash your hands? formal<\/em><\/font>) or vuoi lavarti le mani? <\/strong>(Would you like to wash your hands? informal<\/font><\/em>).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The use of formal and informal personal pronouns is a subject that needs revisiting often, especially if your mother tongue is English and you are not used to using these two forms of addressing people. In this post I\u2019m going to concentrate on the ways in which we use the formal and informal pronouns when…<\/p>\n
Continue Reading<\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"author":19,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"content-type":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[229146,229147,229142,229144,229145,229143],"class_list":["post-2324","post","type-post","status-publish","hentry","category-grammar","tag-a-lei-or-le","tag-a-te-or-ti","tag-italian-formal-and-informal-personal-pronouns","tag-la-or-ti","tag-lei-or-te","tag-lei-or-tu"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/italian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2324","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\/19"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/italian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2324"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/italian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2324\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2869,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/italian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2324\/revisions\/2869"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/italian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2324"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/italian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2324"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/italian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2324"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}