Why Italy

Please help me with an Italian phrase - which to use?

I'm trying to learn Italian. My husband's family is Italian and his parents understand a bit but aren't really able to speak English so I think it would be nice if I could learn a little bit of Italian to speak to them. When there are different phrases for the same thing what's the difference and how do you know which one to use? For example if you were asking someone's name there's several different ways to say it. What's the difference with the phrases below and how would you decide when to use one instead of the other? Thank you: Tu come ti chiami? Come ti chiami? Lei come si chiama? Come si chiama?

Public Comments

1. Use the formal "Come Si chiama"
2. The 1st two are similar and they are the informal way of asking somebody's name. You'll ask that question to somebody who's your own age and who looks like you could have a friendly relationship with. The 2nd two are the same and you'll use them for asking a name of a person you respect, admire, who's older than you, etc. .
3. Basically number 1 is just the same as number 2...the point is that in italian we don't have to express the subject everytime. "Tu" means "you" - you can either say it or not (but if you avoid the "tu" it sounds better). plus, the costruction of the sentence is different from english (i mean, we can say "Qual è il tuo nome" = "What's your name?" but it's not common). we actually say "(Tu) come ti chiami?" = "How do you call yourself?" (that's the common one). n° 1 and 2 you can use them when you have a certain level of confidence with the person you are talkin to. if you don't have this confidence, or even if you have, but you are talkin to someone older than you to whom you owe some respect you should definitely use n° 3 or n° 4. the point of sayin "Lei come si chiama?" or "Come si chiama?" is just the same as what i just told you about using or not the "Tu". if you do say "lei" it's a lil more harsh on the ear but definitely correct. a lil sidespeech: usually the pronoun "lei" is fem. for "lui" (masc) and it's the same as "she" in english. (Io = I, tu = you, egli/ella or lui/lei = he/she, noi = we, voi = you, loro/essi = they). but if you are using the "lei" as a "respect form" u say "lei" both for men and women. i know it sounds a little intricate but everybody knows this "lei" thing is for those who dont speak italian so don't worry too much.