Addressing people

This is a complex topic. Basically, it is concerned on how you convey respect and non-familiarity when talking to strangers, people above you in rank or status, and the like. In English, you address that person by using his/her title and surname: Mrs Smith, Professor Brown, Doctor Sweeney, etc. We will use "formal" and its derivatives ("formally, formality" etc.) to refer to such forms of address.

In English, you show familiarity, friendship or other forms of peer-to-peer relationship by using first names and nicknames. We will use "informal" and its derivatives ("informally, informality" etc.) to refer to such forms of address.

Italian uses different pronouns and/or their corresponding verb forms to convey formality vs. informality. (On the absence of subject pronouns see )

As described here Italian also distinguishes between a second person singular, when addressing one person, from a second person plural, when addressing two or more people. English merges both these two into the "you forms".

This leads to four different cases:


• addressing one person informally;
  

• addressing one person formally;
  

• addressing more people informally;
  

• addressing more people formally.

This is the resulting table:

	informal	formal
one person	tu	Lei
more people	voi	Loro / Voi

By itself, "lei" corresponds to "she": She's my sister Lei è mia sorella. This means that you talk to one person formally as if you were talking about a female subject. Here are a few examples of formal sentences:

Where do you (sing.) live? (Lei) Dove abita?

You (sing.) are to take these pills twice a day. Lei deve prendere queste pillole due volte al giorno.

Excuse me, I'd like to talk to you (sing.). Scusi, vorrei parlarLe.

Where can I meet you (sing.) this evening? Dove posso incontrarLa stasera?

I wrote to you (sing.) a week ago. Le ho scritto una settimana fa.

Remarks:

1. The informal equivalents of the above sentences are: (Tu) Dove abiti? / Tu devi prendere queste pillole due volte al giorno. / Scusa, vorrei parlarti. / Dove posso incontrarti stasera? / Ti ho scritto una settimana fa.

2. As the examples show, "Lei" stands for the whole set of feminine 3rd person sing. pronouns "Lei, Le, La" and "tu" also stands for "ti, te". The same applies to "voi, ve, vi". The table of pronouns is available here

3. Capital letters are often used for the "Lei, Loro, Voi" forms, especially in very formal letters.

4. In the plural, "Loro" ( they) is now considered extremely formal so "Voi" is acceptable in most cases when talking to strangers.

Examples:

Will you (pl.) allow me to leave now? Loro permettono che io vada adesso? Voi permettete che io vada adesso?

Whatever you (pl.) decide will be accepted by us. Qualunque cosa Loro decideranno verrà accettata da noi. Qualunque cosa Voi deciderete verrà accettata da noi.

We will be glad to host you (pl.) in our hotel. Saremo lieti di ospitare Loro nel nostro albergo. Saremo lieti di ospitarVi nel nostro albergo.