{"id":3856,"date":"2013-08-27T11:17:35","date_gmt":"2013-08-27T11:17:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/italian\/?p=3856"},"modified":"2013-09-19T09:20:17","modified_gmt":"2013-09-19T09:20:17","slug":"lei-le-or-la","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/italian\/lei-le-or-la\/","title":{"rendered":"Lei, Le or La?"},"content":{"rendered":"

This morning my husband Geoff had to write an e.mail to the dentist to make an appointment, and before sending it he asked me to check it for spelling and grammar mistakes. Well, I must say that it was well written, but had one recurrent mistake: the confusion between the various formal personal pronouns. Despite being fluent in Italian, Geoff still struggles when he has to address someone formally, because, unlike me, he didn\u2019t grow up with the distinction between formal and informal. He has learnt Italian mainly by interacting with Italian friends and family so he\u2019s had little practice at speaking formally, and tends to use the informal tu<\/strong> all the time, but occasionally, of course,\u00a0 he has to use the lei<\/strong>. Well, here\u2019s an extract from Geoff\u2019s e.mail, highlighting the various forms of the personal pronoun lei,<\/strong> e.g. lei, le,<\/strong> and la <\/strong>with which he \u2018struggled\u2019:<\/p>\n

Salve, mi chiamo Geoff Chamberlain e ho fatto una visita da lei<\/span> preso l’ASL di Pontremoli suppergi\u00f9 un anno fa. Le<\/span> ho chiesto il suo biglietto da visita \u2026 Vorrei fare una visita da lei<\/span> appena possibile. Ho provato il suo numero di telefono ma non riesco a contattarla<\/span>.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Hello, my name is Geoff Chamberlain and I had a check-up with you<\/span><\/strong> at Pontremoli National Health Centre about a year ago. I asked you<\/span><\/strong> for your visiting card \u2026 I\u2019d like to have a check-up with you<\/span><\/strong> as soon as possible. I tried your telephone number but I can\u2019t contact you<\/span><\/strong>.<\/em><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

Below is an explanation of the different forms of the formal pronouns followed by some practical examples. Notice that in the examples I intentionally used Signor Rossi<\/strong> = Mister Rossi<\/em> (male singular) to show that the formal pronouns lei<\/strong>, le<\/strong> and la<\/strong>, despite being feminine, are also used for men:<\/p>\n

1. <\/span>lei<\/strong><\/span> (indirect object) preceded by a preposition<\/span> (e.g. di<\/strong> = of\/about, a<\/strong> = to, da<\/strong> = from, in<\/strong> = in, con<\/strong> = with, su<\/strong> = on, per<\/strong> = for, tra\/fra<\/strong> = between); e.g.:<\/p>\n

Signor Rossi, che piacere! Ho sentito parlare molto di lei<\/span><\/span><\/strong> = Mister Rossi, what a pleasure! I\u2019ve heard many things <\/em>about you<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

Signor Rossi, c\u2019\u00e8 una lettera per lei<\/span><\/span><\/strong> = Mister Rossi, there\u2019s a letter for you<\/span><\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\n

2.<\/span><\/span><\/strong>le<\/span><\/strong> (indirect object) is short for \u2018a lei\u2019<\/span><\/strong> (to you),<\/em> e.g.:<\/p>\n

Signor Rossi, devo parlarle<\/span> in privato<\/strong> (or: Signor Rossi, devo parlare in privato a lei<\/span><\/strong>) = Mister Rossi, I must talk to you<\/span> in private<\/em><\/p>\n

Signor Rossi, le<\/span> presento mio marito<\/strong> (or: Signor Rossi, presento mio marito a lei<\/span><\/strong>) = Mister Rossi, this is my husband<\/em> (literally \u2018I introduce my husband to you\u2019<\/span><\/em>)<\/p>\n

3. <\/span>la <\/span><\/strong>(direct object) is used after a verb and is not<\/span> preceded by a preposition, e.g.:<\/p>\n

La <\/span>richiamo pi\u00f9 tardi, Signor Rossi <\/strong><\/strong>= I\u2019ll call you<\/span> back later on, Mister Rossi<\/em><\/em><\/p>\n

Signor Rossi, desideriamo ringraziarla<\/span> per il suo aiuto <\/strong>= Mister Rossi, we would like to thank you<\/span> for your help<\/em><\/p>\n

\n

4. lei<\/span><\/strong> (verb subject). In Geoff\u2019s e.mail there isn\u2019t any example of lei<\/strong> used as verb subject, i.e. the person doing the action, the reason being that in Italian we don\u2019t tend to express the subject very often as it is implicit in the verb conjugation. We only use it to put an emphasis on whom we are talking to or about, or when we need to make clear who is carrying out an action. Here are a couple of examples in which lei<\/strong> is used as the subject:<\/p>\n

Non ho mai visto il film \u201cIl Caimano\u201d, lei<\/span> l\u2019ha visto?<\/strong> = I\u2019ve never seen the film \u201cIl Caimano\u201d, have you<\/span> seen it?<\/em><\/p>\n

Io prendo un Prosecco , e lei?<\/span> <\/span>(i.e. lei<\/span> cosa prende?)<\/span><\/strong> = I\u2019ll have a Prosecco, and you <\/span>(i.e. what will you<\/span> have) <\/span>?<\/em><\/p>\n

You can find out more about the formal pronouns in this article: Pronomi personali formali e informali<\/span><\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This morning my husband Geoff had to write an e.mail to the dentist to make an appointment, and before sending it he asked me to check it for spelling and grammar mistakes. Well, I must say that it was well written, but had one recurrent mistake: the confusion between the various formal personal pronouns. Despite…<\/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":[292087,292085,292086],"class_list":["post-3856","post","type-post","status-publish","hentry","category-grammar","tag-difference-between-lei-le-and-la","tag-italian-formal-personal-pronouns","tag-using-formal-personal-pronouns-in-italian"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/italian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3856","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=3856"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/italian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3856\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3971,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/italian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3856\/revisions\/3971"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/italian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3856"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/italian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3856"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/italian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3856"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}