Today, my dear friends, we are going to talk about you and I. What do I mean? Well, we are going to talk about subject pronouns. These teeny tiny words are used to express who is doing the action, and they are called subject pronoun because they actually are the subject of the sentence. They are used instead or names like Marco, Lucia and Cecilia, or instead of professions, like “le dottoresse” – the doctors ­– or “gli insegnanti” – the teachers.

But why am I going to talk about this boring subject, especially since you don’t have to put the subject in sentences every time in Italian since you can infer it from the verb? You see, Italian has a few more subject pronouns that don’t exist in English that are often a little hard to understand for English speaker or probably just to get used to use it. This doesn’t mean that Italian is better than English! In fact we also do not have some subject pronouns that you do have, like “it,” a specific general pronoun used to indicate unanimated objects or in most cases also animals. 

But let’s start looking at the easy ones. As you were taught, the 5 subject pronouns that correspond the English ones are: “io” for I, “tu” for you, “lui” for he, “lei” for she, “noi” for we, “loro” for they. Easy peasy. Yeah, but let’s add one more: “voi” used as “you” but in a plural sense. So if we want to say: “Chiara e Luca, how are you?” (For the explanation sake, I will use the subject in this sentence, even if it can be omitted.) Then, it will become “Come state voi?” Therefore, Italian has a differentiation between “tu” and “voi,” that is “you singular” and “you plural.” I guess the easiest way to put it is that “voi” can be expressed with “you guys,” or the more southern “you all/y’all.” 

Is that it? Is this the only different? Cool! Ehm, actually, this is only the start. Do you remember when your Italian teacher told you that “lui” was he, “lei” was she, and “loro” was they? That is not completely correct. In modern standard Italian, those became the used subject pronouns for he, she, and they when speaking, but there is a more specific form for them, that would be more clear but it’s going more and more out of use in colloquial Italian. We have to first differentiate between people and objects-animals. He in fact can be expressed as he-he in the case of a male person, or he-it in the case of a male object or male animal. Yes I am talking about male objects, because as you well know all words in Italian have either a male or female gender. So, a male person can be expressed as “egli” and a male object or animal as “esso.” In the same way, for a female person we would use “ella,” and for a female object or animal “essa.” For the third person plural, they, it becomes a little easier because the pronoun could only be female or male, respectively “esse” or “essi.” These forms are much more common in formal situations and in writing. The difference between “egli” and “esso” in a novel or in a report can be crucial to a better and more immediate understanding of the text. 

Then we have the so-called “polite forms” which are the polite “lei” and “voi.” Yes, two different forms. What’s the difference? As we have seen before in the article on this subject, it mostly depends on the geographical areas: certain parts of Italy, like Lombardy, would prefer the use of “lei” and others, like Campania, the use of “voi” to show respect and politeness. “Voi” can be considered more formal than “lei,” but in certain cases and areas it’s subjective. Anyway, they are both used instead of “tu” and they are used to show respect. You would use it to people you have just met, older people, teachers, professors, to your superiors, doctors, in a formal or professional situation, that is in any case that there is a hierarchical, professional, or institutional situation. In general, if you are not in a familiar or intimate relationship, if you don’t have a daily basis relationship with this person, I would go with “lei.” An exception is if we are talking about people your same age, friends or friends of friends.

After, we have something that is not really a subject pronoun but that kind of works in the same way: the impersonal pronoun “si.” In English, it can be expressed with “one” or more frequently “you,” or even “people,” for instance: “one would think that…” or “if one fails, one can try again,” or “you could think that…” or “if you fail, you can try again,” “people think that…,” or “in Italy, people speak Italian.” In Italian this form is expressed with “si” – without the accent – not to be confused with “sì” (affirmative answer) or “si” (reflexive pronoun). It’s called impersonal because there is no specific reference to who the subject is. In this particular form of expressing this impersonality, you should use the “si” pronoun followed by the third person singular conjugation of the verb: “A casa tua si mangia bene” or “in Italia, si parla italiano.”

Ecco qui! Here it is, your sojourn through Italian pronouns. Just to make sure that you and I are okay!