Essential Italian Phrases for Your Trip to Italy

You don't need fluent Italian to travel well in Italy. You need about thirty phrases, used at the right moment, said with a bit of effort. Italians notice and appreciate that effort more than they care about your grammar — a mangled buongiorno on your way into a shop lands better than a flawless hello ever will. This guide skips the vocabulary-list approach and instead groups phrases by the situations you'll actually hit: walking into a place, ordering food, getting around, and being polite in between.

A quick note on pronunciation before you start: Italian is close to phonetic, and if you want the full rundown of how vowels, double consonants, and stress work, our Italian pronunciation guide covers it in more depth. For now, the short version is enough to get through everything below.

How do you greet people walking into any room in Italy?

Every interaction in Italy — a shop, a café, an elevator with a stranger in it — starts with a greeting. Skipping it isn't neutral, it reads as rude, so this is the single habit worth building before anything else.

• Buongiorno (bwohn-JOR-noh) — "Good morning" / "good day." Use this until mid-afternoon, roughly until 5 or 6pm.
• Buonasera (bwoh-nah-SEH-rah) — "Good evening." Switches in from late afternoon onward.
• Ciao (chow) — "Hi" / "bye." Informal only — use it with people your age or younger, or once someone else has used it with you first. Don't open with ciao to a shopkeeper, waiter, or anyone older; lead with buongiorno instead.
• Salve (SAHL-veh) — a useful middle ground between formal and informal, safe to use with anyone at any time of day.
• Arrivederci (ah-ree-veh-DEHR-chee) — "Goodbye," the standard polite version for leaving a shop, restaurant, or any formal-ish interaction.
• Come sta? (KOH-meh stah) — "How are you?" (formal). The informal version, for friends, is Come stai? (KOH-meh sty).
• Piacere (pyah-CHEH-reh) — "Nice to meet you," said when you're introduced to someone.

The pattern to remember: walk into any shop, café, or trattoria and say buongiorno or buonasera before you ask for anything. It's not optional politeness, it's the expected first move, and Italians will often visibly warm up once you've made it.

At the café and restaurant

Food and coffee are where you'll use Italian most, several times a day, so this is the highest-value section to actually memorize.

• Un caffè, per favore (oon kah-FEH, pehr fah-VOH-reh) — "A coffee, please." In Italy, "un caffè" means an espresso by default — if you want anything else, name it.
• Un cappuccino / un cornetto — a cappuccino, a croissant. Order these before 11am if you want to drink like a local; cappuccino after a meal is a foreigner tell, not a rule anyone will enforce, but it's worth knowing.
• Vorrei... (voh-RAY) — "I would like..." This is the single most useful phrase for ordering anything, more polite than voglio ("I want"). Follow it with the item: vorrei un tavolo per due ("I'd like a table for two"), vorrei il conto ("I'd like the bill").
• Un tavolo per due, per favore (oon TAH-voh-loh pehr DOO-eh) — "A table for two, please." Swap due for uno (one), tre (three), or quattro (four) as needed.
• Il conto, per favore (eel KOHN-toh) — "The bill, please." Italian restaurants won't bring the bill unasked — it's considered rude to rush you — so you need to actively request it.
• È incluso il servizio? (eh in-KLOO-zoh eel sehr-VEE-tsyoh) — "Is service included?" Worth asking before you tip, since practice varies by restaurant and region.
• Cosa consiglia? (KOH-zah kohn-SEE-lyah) — "What do you recommend?" A good line for a menu you don't fully understand, and a nice way to signal trust in the kitchen.
• Sono allergico/a a... (SOH-noh ah-lehr-JEE-koh/kah ah) — "I'm allergic to..." Follow with the ingredient. Use allergico if you're male, allergica if you're female.
• Basta così, grazie (BAH-stah koh-ZEE) — "That's enough, thank you" — handy when a server is portioning something for you, like cured meats or cheese at a deli counter.

Menus, table etiquette, and how tipping actually works in Italy (it's lighter than in the US, and never expected the same way) get their own full treatment in our Italy restaurant etiquette guide, worth a read before your first proper sit-down meal.

What Italian phrases help with transport and directions?

Trains, buses, taxis, and asking a stranger for directions all draw on a small, repeatable set of phrases.

• Dov'è...? (doh-VEH) — "Where is...?" The workhorse question. Dov'è la stazione? ("Where is the station?"), dov'è il bagno? ("Where is the bathroom?").
• Quanto costa un biglietto per...? (KWAHN-toh KOH-stah oon bee-LYEHT-toh pehr) — "How much does a ticket to... cost?"
• A che ora parte il treno? (ah keh OH-rah PAHR-teh eel TREH-noh) — "What time does the train leave?"
• Sto cercando... (stoh chehr-KAHN-doh) — "I'm looking for..." Useful when you can point at a map or address rather than pronounce a street name.
• A destra (ah DEH-strah) — "To the right." A sinistra (ah see-NEE-strah) — "To the left." Sempre dritto (SEHM-preh DREE-toh) — "Straight ahead." Between these three you can follow almost any set of directions someone gives you on the street.
• È lontano? (eh lohn-TAH-noh) — "Is it far?" And the reassuring flip side: È vicino (eh vee-CHEE-noh) — "It's close."
• Un biglietto, per favore (oon bee-LYEHT-toh) — "One ticket, please," at a station counter or machine.
• Mi può aiutare? (mee pwoh ah-yoo-TAH-reh) — "Can you help me?" A polite, formal way to flag down help from a stranger, station staff, or a driver.
• Scusi (SKOO-zee) — "Excuse me" (formal), the right word to get someone's attention or squeeze past on a crowded bus. The informal version, scusa, is for friends only.

If you ever need Italian for something more urgent than a wrong turn — a medical situation, lost documents, or contacting emergency services — keep our emergency Italian phrases guide bookmarked separately; it's built for exactly that, not for everyday use.

Polite forms: the words that do the most work

Italians are warm but formal in small, consistent ways, and a handful of short words carry a surprising amount of that warmth.

• Per favore (pehr fah-VOH-reh) — "Please."
• Grazie (GRAH-tsyeh) — "Thank you." Grazie mille (GRAH-tsyeh MEE-leh) — "Thanks a million" / "thanks so much," for when plain grazie doesn't feel like enough.
• Prego (PREH-goh) — "You're welcome," but also does double duty as "please, go ahead" (holding a door) or "come in." Context tells you which.
• Scusi / Scusa (SKOO-zee / SKOO-zah) — "Excuse me" / "sorry," formal and informal respectively.
• Mi dispiace (mee dee-SPYAH-cheh) — "I'm sorry," for a genuine apology rather than the light "excuse me" of scusi.
• Sì / No (see / noh) — "Yes" / "no." Simple, but note that Italians often nod along while listening without meaning "yes" — don't over-read body language.
• Parla inglese? (PAHR-lah een-GLEH-zeh) — "Do you speak English?" Always ask this in Italian first, even if you're about to switch to English — it's a small courtesy that changes the tone of the whole exchange.
• Non capisco (nohn kah-PEE-skoh) — "I don't understand."
• Può ripetere, per favore? (pwoh ree-PEH-teh-reh) — "Could you repeat that, please?"

The formal/informal split — tu versus Lei — matters more in Italian than it does in English, a distinction cultural etiquette guides note as a defining feature of Italian social interaction. As a tourist, default to the formal register (scusi, Lei-based questions like Come sta?) with anyone you don't know: shopkeepers, waiters, hotel staff, strangers on the street. Save tu-form informality for people your own age in casual settings, or once someone has clearly switched to informal with you.

Which Italian numbers will you actually use?

You don't need to count to a hundred fluently, but the first ten or so numbers come up constantly — ordering, paying, asking for a table, checking a price.

Number	Italian	Pronunciation
1	uno	OO-noh
2	due	DOO-eh
3	tre	treh
4	quattro	KWAH-troh
5	cinque	CHEEN-kweh
6	sei	say
7	sette	SEH-teh
8	otto	OH-toh
9	nove	NOH-veh
10	dieci	DYEH-chee

Beyond ten, round numbers do most of the work: venti (20), trenta (30), cento (100). If a price or time is spoken quickly and you miss it, può ripetere, per favore? from the polite-forms list above is your fallback — or just ask the person to write it down, which almost everyone will happily do.

Frequently asked questions