Italian vocabulary

In this post, we’re going to teach you some useful Italian vocabulary.

You’ll learn how to say hello and goodbye in Italian, how to introduce yourself in Italian, and some common Italian words.

Let’s get started!

Greetings in Italian

Here are the most common greetings in Italian:

The most popular “hello” in Italian is ciao. It can be used at any time of the day.

Interestingly, it can also mean “bye”.

Another option is a salve, but it’s more formal.

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It’s a safe choice whenever you don’t know whether to sound formal or informal. For instance, you would say salve to the cashier at a shop.

There are other ways of saying “hello” depending on the time of the day:

buongiorno

good morning

buon pomeriggio

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good afternoon

buonasera

good evening

Buongiorno means “good morning” or “good day”. Buon pomeriggio means “good afternoon”, but it’s pretty formal. Buonasera can be used as a good evening greeting.

A domani literally means “until tomorrow”, so we use it like “see you tomorrow.”

You can use it when you’re leaving the office.

Ci vediamo literally means “see each other”, so you can use it as “see you”.

You can combine this expression with a time expression, as in the examples below:

Then there’s this formal farewell greeting:

Arrivederci literally means “until we meet again”.

We use it to say “goodbye” in a formal way, for instance, when we want to say goodbye to our teacher.

If you’re with a friend you can just say ciao, ci vediamo domani!

Learn more about how to say “hello” in Italian and how to say “goodbye” in Italian.

Introducing yourself in Italian

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Let’s now focus on words and expressions you can use to introduce yourself:

Here’s an example of someone introducing themselves:

Learn more about how to introduce yourself.

Common words in Italian

Here’s a list of the most common Italian words:

Learn more common Italian words.

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