How to Say Hello in Italian (Without Looking Like a Tourist)

So you're learning Italian and figured you'd start with the basics. "Ciao" - easy, right? It's the one Italian word everybody knows.

Here's the problem: Walk into a Roman restaurant at dinnertime and greet the host with "Ciao!" and you've just announced to everyone that you're either a tourist or you think you're way more familiar with this person than you actually are. It's the equivalent of walking into a law firm and saying "Sup, dude?" to the managing partner.

Italian greetings aren't complicated, but they do matter. Use the wrong one and Italians won't get mad - they'll just mentally file you under "doesn't get it." Use the right one and you'll get treated like you actually know what you're doing.

Let me break down how this actually works.

The Ciao Problem

Everyone knows "ciao." It's in movies, songs, Italian restaurants around the world. But here's what your Italian textbook probably didn't emphasize enough: ciao is strictly informal. Like, friends-and-family-only informal.

The word has a weird history too. It comes from the Venetian phrase "s-ciào vostro," which literally meant "I am your slave." Back in medieval Venice, this was how servants addressed their masters - basically saying "I'm at your service." Over centuries, it got shortened to "ciao" and lost the servile meaning, but Italians still instinctively know it's not something you throw around casually.

Use ciao with:

Don't use ciao with:

When an Italian responds to your "ciao" with a cold "buongiorno," that's them telling you: we're not that familiar.

The Actually Safe Greeting: Buongiorno

If you only learn one Italian greeting properly, make it buongiorno (good morning/good day). This is your Swiss Army knife greeting - it works in almost every situation from sunrise until mid-afternoon.

Unlike English where "good morning" is pretty specific to morning hours, buongiorno covers a longer stretch. You can use it from when you wake up until roughly 3-4 PM, depending on the region. Some southern Italians might stretch it until 5 PM. When in doubt, buongiorno is safe.

The best part? It works in both formal and informal situations. You can say it to your grandmother, your coworker, or the person checking you into your hotel. Nobody will think twice about it.

Pro tip: When you're leaving (not arriving), switch to "buona giornata" (have a nice day). Buongiorno is for hellos, buona giornata is for goodbyes during the day.

When Afternoon Hits: Buonasera

Once it gets later in the day, Italians switch to buonasera (good evening). This is where regional differences actually matter.

In northern Italy, people might start saying buonasera as early as 2-3 PM. In the south, they might not switch until 4-5 PM. The timing also shifts with the seasons - in winter when it gets dark early, northerners switch to buonasera earlier because "daylight is waning."

Here's the practical advice: pay attention to what locals are saying. If you walk into a shop at 4 PM and everyone's saying buonasera, go with that. If they're still on buongiorno, stick with buongiorno.

Like buongiorno, buonasera works in both formal and informal contexts. It's a safe choice for restaurants, shops, meeting parents of friends, business dinners - pretty much everything except close friends, where you'd just use ciao.

And no, "buon pomeriggio" (good afternoon) isn't really a thing. Technically it exists, but Italians rarely use it as a greeting except maybe on the news. Don't worry about it.

The Middle Ground: Salve

Salve is interesting. It's like the neutral zone between ciao and buongiorno. You'd use it when:

It works at any time of day, which makes it handy. Flight attendants, hotel receptionists, grocery store clerks - salve works for all of them. It's less warm than ciao but less formal than buongiorno.

That said, it's also less common than the other greetings. Some Italians find it slightly cold or impersonal. It's a perfectly good option, just don't be surprised if people default to buongiorno or ciao instead.

Special Cases

On the phone: Italians answer with "pronto?" (ready?). Don't say ciao, don't say buongiorno - just pronto. It's one of those cultural quirks that marks you as knowing what you're doing.

Saying goodbye at night: Buonanotte (good night) is only for when someone's actually going to bed. Don't use it as a general evening greeting when you're entering somewhere. If you walk into a restaurant at 9 PM and say buonanotte, the waiter will think you're confused. Use buonasera instead, even late at night.

What Nobody Tells You

Here's what your textbook won't say but Italians do in practice: the formality rules aren't as rigid as they seem. Yes, start formal. Yes, use buongiorno with strangers. But also - read the room.

If you're in a laid-back café and the vibe is casual and everyone around you is young, you can probably get away with ciao. If someone greets you with ciao first, you can respond with ciao. The key is following the other person's lead.

Older Italians are stricter about this stuff. Young people in big cities are more relaxed. Southern Italy tends to be warmer and more informal. Northern Italy can be more formal and business-focused.

The other thing nobody mentions: Italians appreciate when foreigners get the greetings right. We're not talking about your accent or perfect pronunciation. We're talking about showing you understand the social context - that you know when to be formal and when to be casual.

This matters more in Italian than in English because Italian still has formal and informal verb conjugations (tu vs. Lei). The greeting you use signals which version of Italian you're planning to speak. Get it right and conversations flow naturally.

Learning Italian the Right Way

Look, you can memorize all the greeting rules you want, but here's the truth: you'll only really get comfortable with this stuff by hearing how Italians actually use these words in context.

That's where watching actual Italian content - shows, movies, YouTube videos - matters. You'll see shop clerks greeting customers with buongiorno, friends meeting up with ciao, formal business meetings with salve. You start picking up on the patterns naturally, the way you'd pick up slang or tone in English.

With Migaku's browser extension, you can watch Italian Netflix shows and click any word you don't know for an instant definition. You hear "buongiorno" in the morning café scene, "buonasera" when the detective enters the restaurant at night, "ciao" when friends meet up. The greetings stop being rules you memorize and start being things you just know because you've heard them in context hundreds of times.

We also handle the boring parts automatically. When you click a word or phrase, it goes straight into your flashcard deck with the audio from the show. You review it later using spaced repetition, so these greetings actually stick in your memory instead of evaporating the second you close the textbook.

The mobile app syncs everything, so you can review on the bus or whenever you have five minutes. Makes a huge difference compared to trying to cram vocabulary sessions into your already busy schedule.

Plus, you're learning from the Italian that Italians actually speak - not textbook Italian from 1985. You get the informal speech, the regional variations, the casual phrases, all of it. When you finally visit Rome or Milan, you'll sound like you learned Italian from people, not from a grammar drill.

You can try Migaku free for 10 days, no credit card required. See if learning from real Italian content works better than whatever you're doing now.