Aiken - Making Out In Italian

Hi...Nice to Meet You Ciao...Piacere

Ciao , the cheerful way of greeting people in Italy, is universally used. Its used morning, evening, afternoon and night. It is used to say hello and to say goodbye. It is used when you are intimate with someone or between simple acquaintances, and even in casual encounters on the street, at the bar or at the beach. Sometimes ciao is used on purpose to create an immediate sense of familiarity, friendship and closeness.

In business situations, in formal occasions or when talking to public officials instead it is important to use the more formal and polite expressions: buongiorno for good morning, buonasera for good evening. Even when at a store buying something or at a restaurant talking to a waiter/ waitress or at the hotel talking to the front desk people, try to use the more formal expression as a sign of respect for the clerks.

Come ti chiami literally means How do you call yourself and it is the way Italians approach people whom they do not know but with whom they want to start talking.Thats the way you can be approached everywhere in Italyat the airport as often as in a coffee shop, or in line in a store or at the post officeand it has to be considered a friendly conversation-starter.

If you like it, use it with no second thought: what in the U.S. might be considered a bit out of line or even invasive, in Italy is the norm. Keep in mind that Italians are naturally communicative (of course there are the stiff ones but they are the exception) and they do not find it at all impolite or intrusive to speak to strangers; it is very normal that they will strike up a conversation with you, asking a lot of questions and at the same time providing you with a lot of information about their own life.

Think the word piacere (literally pleasure) all the time. It is your door-opener in Italy: try to always say it when you meet or you are introduced to someone for the first time, be it the person who greets you at the hotel and tells you his/her name, or a friend or a friend of a friend, or a business partner, or a lovely woman/man you just met. Say piacere as the Italians do: shaking hands (only once, with one up-down shake), smiling and looking straight in the eyes of the other person. You can also say un piacere : It is (indeed) a pleasure. Never forget that pleasure is a key component of the Italian soul and lifestyle.

Dove (where), cosa (what), come (how), quando (when), quanto (how much), perche (why), chi (who): are all important expressions in the Italian language, used to introduce a question.

The literal translation is do you study or do you work?, and this is the way youd most often phrase this question in Italy, not knowing what the other person does.

Ti is the equivalent of you. (Depending on what part it plays in the grammar of a sentence, you has all these forms in Italian: tu ; te ; ti .)

The following expressions are used between people who already know each other.

Quanto tempo , the most common of these two colloquial expressions, can be used when you see someone unexpectedly, but also when you meet someone at a scheduled appointment, if its a while since youve seen that person. It means literally How much time!

un po che non ci vediamo , literally It is a while that we do not see each other, can be used in every occasion, just like the previous expression; however it conveys less of an exclamation connotation.

It means literally What a pleasure to see you again and its a phrase you will hearand probably sayvery often.

Come va? is extremely common in everyday conversation. Its a friendly expression whose meanings include hows it going?, how have you been doing?, whats new?

It is used when you see someone again after a while apart, and its also used just as often to greet someone with whom you are in touch continuously, perhaps a colleague you see at work every morning, or a friend, or a spouse when you return home after a workday.

Quali novit? means literally is there news. It can be used interchangeably with Come va?

This colloquial phrase can come in very handy for you, anytime you want to answer a generic question without going into details, or as way let a conversation die: lit.nothing of something.