Greetings in Italian: ciao, salve and the rest
The greetings in Italian are ciao (hi, and bye), salve (hello), buongiorno (good morning), buonasera (good evening), buonanotte (good night) and arrivederci (goodbye). Ciao is the one everyone knows, and in Italian film and television dialogue it is said more than three times as often as salve, the next greeting on the list. Below are the greetings with how to say them, which to use with whom, and a ranking of how often Italian films actually use each one.
The greetings in Italian
| Greeting | Say it | Meaning | Use it |
|---|---|---|---|
| Ciao | CHOW | hi; bye | with friends, family and children |
| Salve | SAHL-veh | hello | with anyone, when you are unsure |
| Buongiorno | bwon-JOR-no | good morning, good day | until the afternoon |
| Buonasera | bwo-na-SEH-ra | good evening | from the afternoon on |
| Buonanotte | bwo-na-NOT-teh | good night | when someone is going to bed |
| Arrivederci | ar-ree-veh-DEHR-chee | goodbye | the standard goodbye |
| ArrivederLa | ar-ree-veh-DEHR-la | goodbye | the formal goodbye, to one person |
| Addio | ad-DEE-o | farewell | a goodbye for good |
| Benvenuto | ben-veh-NOO-to | welcome | benvenuta to a woman, benvenuti to several people |
| Pronto? | PRON-to | hello? | answering the phone |
Ciao, salve or buongiorno?
Italian greetings divide by how well you know someone, and ciao sits on the familiar side of the line.
- Ciao is for people you would call tu: friends, family, colleagues your own age, children. It works both ways, for hello and for goodbye.
- Salve is the neutral middle. It is polite without being stiff, and it is the safe choice in a shop, with a stranger of your own age or when you are not sure whether ciao is too familiar.
- Buongiorno and buonasera are the formal greetings, and the right ones with older people, officials and anyone you would call Lei. They also work as goodbyes as you leave a shop.
Which "you" to use with whom is its own question, and it is answered with counts in formal and informal you.
Which greetings do Italian films say most?
We counted each greeting in Italian film and television subtitles.
| # | Word | Meaning | Per million words | Note |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | ciao | hi; bye (informal) | 912.1 | |
| 2 | pronto | hello (on the phone) | 381.5 | also “ready” |
| 3 | salve | hello (neutral, polite) | 272.7 | also “safe” (feminine plural) |
| 4 | buongiorno | good morning, good day | 169.4 | |
| 5 | benvenuto | welcome | 133.9 | |
| 6 | addio | farewell (for good) | 102.1 | |
| 7 | buonanotte | good night | 80.7 | |
| 8 | arrivederci | goodbye | 69.0 | |
| 9 | buonasera | good evening | 46.3 | |
| 10 | arrivederla | goodbye (formal) | 2.7 |
Ciao is first by a long way, at 912.1 times per million words. Salve is second among the true greetings, at 272.7, and buongiorno third, at 169.4. Pronto scores higher than both, but it is a ceiling: it is also the everyday word for "ready".
Two more things the counts show. Addio, the goodbye for good, is said more often than arrivederci: 102.1 times per million words against 69.0, because films are full of final partings. And the formal ArrivederLa has almost disappeared from dialogue, at 2.7: on screen, arrivederci does the job.
Phrases of two words, such as a presto and ci vediamo, cannot be counted this way, because the subtitle counts are of single words: presto is also “soon” and “early”. The table keeps to the one-word greetings, which is most of them.
Where ciao comes from
Ciao began as a formula of service. Wiktionary traces it to the Venetian s-ciao vostro, "(I am) your slave", meaning "at your service", from Medieval Latin sclavus. Over centuries it shrank to ciao and turned from a deferential greeting into the most informal one in the language, and it has since travelled: Portuguese tchau comes from it.
Salve is older still. It is the Latin greeting salvē, "be well", borrowed straight into Italian. Arrivederci is a rivederci, "until we see each other again", the same idea as French au revoir.
Answering a greeting
- Ciao, come stai? — Hi, how are you? (to tu)
- Buongiorno, come sta? — Good morning, how are you? (to Lei)
- Bene, grazie, e tu? — Fine, thanks, and you?
- Tutto bene. — All good.
- Piacere. — Nice to meet you.
- A presto! — See you soon!
Grazie, the word that usually follows, is counted in which language says thank you most, and ciao is compared with the greetings of seven other languages in hello and goodbye, ranked.
Learn them in a sentence
Greetings are the first lesson of the free Italian course, Verbavia (our own course), with a recording of each. Ciao and salve are both among the thousand words Italian films say most; grazie goes further and makes the 100 most common Italian words. Other everyday sets: family members in Italian, colours in Italian and the days of the week.
Sources
- Wiktionary: ciao, salve, arrivederci, pronto and buongiorno, for the meanings and origins.
- The counts are from OpenSubtitles 2018 (Lison, P. & Tiedemann, J., 2016, aclanthology.org) through Hermit Dave's FrequencyWords lists, content licensed CC BY-SA 4.0, github.com. They are computed by
scripts/frequency_thousand.pyand printed from its output rather than typed.