Karma: 0

How do you say "How are you doing?" in Italian?

A concerned Italian mother asks "How're you doing?" to her daughter, trying to comforty her. How would she say it in Italian?

Answer this

0 Views: 848 Answers: 3 Posted: 14 years ago

3 Answers

digger

Karma: 221155

That is correct. Stai is the informal word for "are you".That's what a mother would use when addressing her daughter. The formal way, as in asking a non-related elder or someone you've never met (children excepted) is STA. Come sta (lei)? Lei and tu both mean "you". Lei being formal and tu being informal.

Formal and informal are commonly misused by latin languages beginners. It's easily forgiven by the listener because of the speaker's noticeable foreign accent.

The other common difficulty in learning latin languages is that unlike English where objects are non-gendered, latin objects have all been assigned completely arbitrary genders. For instance, "una tavola" (a table" is female whereas "un banco" ( a bench) is male. Don't ask why,that's just the way it is. The only way to master it correctly is by memorizing the appropriate genders or through osmosis which is how children learn it.

"UN" or "UNO" prefaces a male object (both mean "a" as in a bench.
"UNA" is the female version of above.

Good luck. Are you planning on visiting Europe?

14 years ago. Rating: 1
Comment this answer

digger

That's right. Italian,Spanish,French and Portuguese, all latin-based languages use the gender rule. Easy to figure out when referring to people but when describing things, it's a wild guess if you don't know the "correct" sex.

commented 14 years ago

innocent