Italian for your first 48 hours in Italy

At an Italian bar the money moves before the coffee does. You pay at the till, carry the receipt to the counter, and say your order over the top of it. That order of operations turns up all over the first two days here: the bus ticket counts for nothing until it is stamped, the SIM counter wants a tax code you do not have yet, and the queue at a deli is a question you ask out loud rather than a line you join. This page walks the 48 hours in sequence, from the passport queue to the office on day two, and puts the Italian for each stop beside it. The rows are quoted from our Italian collection, 500 phrases we wrote and reviewed, and the six tables here carry 204 of them from the survive lane and the travel lane next to it.

The first word out of your mouth

Buongiorno. carries you until the middle of the afternoon, at which point everyone around you switches to Buonasera. and you can hear the change happen in a shop. When you cannot judge the hour or the register, Salve. steps over both problems and is safe with anybody.

Italian splits a job English gives to one word. Scusi. gets attention and apologises. Permesso. is for moving your body through a space that already has people in it: a train corridor, a bar three deep at the counter, somebody's hallway. Scusi does not cover that. Working the other way round, Prego. is you're welcome in the English column and go ahead in the note, so the same word opens an exchange and closes it.

Spend Sto imparando l'italiano. early. Our note on that row says people slow down and forgive a lot once they hear it, and it buys you more of the next ten minutes than Parla inglese? does. Keep that one in reserve.

One pair is worth keeping straight while you are tired. Non ho capito. says you missed what was just said. Non capisco says you do not understand at all. Both are ordinary Italian and the first is the one a counter needs.

From the passport queue to the pavement

Ecco il passaporto. and Sono qui per lavoro. are the whole of the desk. What happens on the pavement outside needs more care. Dove sono i taxi? takes you to the rank and the white cabs, and our note on that row is a warning: anybody offering you a taxi inside the terminal is unlicensed.

In the car, two rows protect the fare. Può accendere il tassametro? is a normal thing to ask, because meters are the law in city taxis, though an airport run often has a fixed fare instead and the driver will say so. Posso pagare con la carta? settles the other half. Italian taxis must take cards, and a machine that is suddenly broken is a request for cash. Ask for Mi può fare la ricevuta? if anyone is paying you back for the ride.

Before you leave the terminal, Dove posso comprare una SIM? is worth asking even if you do not buy one there, because the answer tells you whether the shop upstairs is open and what it will want from you. The next section is about what it wants.

The ticket that counts for nothing until you stamp it

Ask Devo convalidare il biglietto? before you sit down anywhere. A paper regional or bus ticket has to be stamped in the little machine on the platform or by the door, an inspector treats an unstamped one as a fare dodge, and an e-ticket is already valid, so four words sort you into the right half of the rule.

Buying the thing is its own small trap. Dove si comprano i biglietti dell'autobus? exists because the driver usually does not sell them, and the tobacconist does. A tabaccheria with its blue and white T sign is a ticket office, a stamp counter and a top-up point at once, which is why it is the shop a newcomer walks past for a week.

At a station, ask for the binario with Da quale binario parte? On a bus with no announcements, Mi può dire quando devo scendere? hands the problem to somebody who knows the route. One more row belongs to any Italian travel day: C'è uno sciopero oggi? Transport strikes are announced days in advance and usually spare the rush hours, so the useful move is to ask, then check the hours rather than the day.

The SIM, and the tax code standing behind it

Vorrei una SIM ricaricabile con internet. gets you served, and then most counters ask for a passport and a codice fiscale. That second document is the reason this section is really about an office. Mi serve il codice fiscale. is the sentence for it, our note says nothing works without it, and it is free at the Agenzia delle Entrate with a passport in your hand.

Ricaricabile is the word that keeps you off a contract. Quanti giga sono inclusi? is how the data allowance gets discussed out loud, and a top-up in a phone shop or a tabaccheria is a ricarica.

Two rows here are about Italian offices in general rather than phones. Devo prendere il numero? matters because most counters run on a ticket machine sorted by service, and the wrong letter puts you back at the start of a morning. Come faccio ad avere lo SPID? asks about the public digital identity that a lot of paperwork now runs through. Getting SPID is usually the first form you fill in so that later ones can be filled in from a sofa.

Bancomat, etti, and the receipt you keep

Dov'è un bancomat? is the first money question, and bancomat is doing double duty: it names the cash machine and the debit card in your wallet. At the till Contanti o carta? is what you will be asked. Contactless is everywhere now, and a small shop can still set a minimum on card payments, so a note or two in your pocket keeps the morning moving.

The deli counter runs on a unit nobody teaches you. Due etti di prosciutto crudo. asks for 100 grams twice over, because Italian shopping weighs food in etti, and asking in grammi gets you served with a smile you did not want. When the slice runs over, the counter asks whether a bit more is fine and Un po' di più, va bene. is the yes.

At a market, keep your hands to yourself. Posso toccare? exists because the seller picks the fruit, and pointing is the polite way in. The queue is a spoken thing too: say Chi è l'ultimo? as you walk in, remember whoever answers, and go after them. We put the same habit in six languages side by side in Who is last? The queue phrase in six languages.

Take Lo scontrino, per favore. and keep the paper. A shop has to give you a scontrino and any return will ask for it. Expect Ha la tessera? at every supermarket till, which is the loyalty card question, and no grazie ends it.

The bar counter, then the table

Pago prima o dopo? is the most useful sentence on this page. In a busy bar you pay at the till first, and the scontrino becomes your ticket: you put it on the counter, weight it with a coin, and say the order over the top of it, and the barista serves whoever has paid. In a quiet bar you order first and settle on the way out. Asking costs you four words and removes the guessing.

Al banco o al tavolo? is the question coming back at you. Standing at the counter is normal and table service costs more, which is why an espresso taken on your feet in thirty seconds is the ordinary Italian version of a coffee break.

Order Un caffè, per favore. and you get an espresso, since caffè means espresso and anything larger has its own name. Un cappuccino e un cornetto. is breakfast, with brioche as the north western word for the same pastry. Cappuccino after lunch marks you as a visitor and nobody will stop you drinking it.

At dinner the bill has a line the English column cannot explain. Il coperto è incluso? asks about the per-head charge for bread and the table that is printed on the menu, and tipping sits separately from it. Nothing arrives until you ask, so Il conto, per favore. is on you, and a waiter who brought the bill unasked would be hurrying you out. If nuts are a problem, say Sono allergico alle noci. and then say more, because noci is strictly walnuts and the words for peanuts and hazelnuts are different again.

The room, and the heating nobody is allowed to turn on

Ho prenotato una camera a nome Rossi. is all of check-in. Then something in the room is wrong, and in an Italian winter it is usually the same thing. Il riscaldamento non funziona. is the sentence, and the note beside it carries a fact that will save you an argument: heating in many buildings runs only on set dates and hours by law, so the desk may have no switch to press.

For everything else, listen for how Italians say broken. L'aria condizionata non va. uses non va, the spoken version, with non funziona a shade more formal and equally correct. Signals get their own verb: Il wifi non prende in camera. because prendere is what reception does, for wifi and for a phone.

If you have keys to a flat rather than a room, two more rows arrive early. È saltata la luce. means the power has tripped, and the meter switch is often out in the hallway rather than inside. Può lasciare il pacco al portiere? is for the building's doorman, who in a lot of city blocks is also the parcel service, the noticeboard and the person who knows which bin goes out tonight.

Nine in the evening, and the pharmacy rota

Something hurts and the shops have shut. Qual è la farmacia di turno? is the row for that hour: one pharmacy in the area stays open through the night and on Sundays, and the rota is posted on the door of every pharmacy nearby, including the dark ones. A closed pharmacy still answers the question.

Inside, three sentences finish the visit. Mi serve un antidolorifico. asks for a painkiller. Ci vuole la ricetta? tells you whether this ends tonight or at a doctor tomorrow, and ricetta means both prescription and recipe, so the context does the work. When the pharmacist asks how long it has been going on, the answer has no verb in it: Da due giorni. is a complete sentence.

112, said as one word

Chiami il centododici. is how you would ask a stranger to call. Italians say the number as a single word, centododici, and our note tells you the fallback for a bad line: uno uno due, digit by digit. One number reaches police, ambulance and fire.

What you say next is short. Qualcuno è ferito. is the sentence that gets a vehicle moving. Dov'è il pronto soccorso? is the other route, and worth knowing before you need it: at the door you are given a colour code by urgency, and a white or green code can mean hours in a chair. Anything stolen ends with Devo fare una denuncia. because the denuncia is the police report that an insurer and an embassy will both ask for a copy of.

Here is the part the collection cannot do for you. An operator's first question is where you are, and no row on this page answers it, because your address is not something we can write in advance. Put the address of wherever you are sleeping into your phone tonight, in Italian word order, and the emergency rows become usable.

Day two: the office, the ticket machine and the letter on it

Day two is the tax code. Everything you tried to do on day one, from the SIM counter to a bank, pointed back at it, so Mi serve il codice fiscale. is the errand, the Agenzia delle Entrate is the office, and a passport is what you bring. Beyond that our note stops, and so does this page: who applies where, and what a consulate can issue in advance, depends on your nationality and changes, so check the current rules before you spend a morning on it.

Two rows shorten the queue. Devo prendere il numero? asked at the door puts you in the right ticket stream. Quali documenti servono? asked on the phone the day before saves the trip you would otherwise make twice.

If you are staying, one question belongs in the first conversation with a landlord. Il contratto è registrato? matters because a registered lease is what proves your address to a bank and to an office, and Posso prendere la residenza? follows it. Our note on that row is blunt: a landlord who refuses residenza is a reason to walk away. That is a judgement we are comfortable printing, and it is the only one on this page.

Where this page stops being useful

Start with a hole in our own file. The Italian collection has no eSIM row. Our French list has one and this one does not, which is an inconsistency in how we wrote the two lanes rather than a statement about Italy, and it means a reader who lands with a profile already installed skips straight to the wifi rows. It is on the list to fix.

The second limit is register. Every survive row here is Lei, because a stranger behind a counter is Lei and that is the safe default on day one. Colleagues, hostel desks and bike shops will very often open in tu, and the collection marks tu only in the work lane, so the first informal sentence somebody says to you will be one this page did not prepare. Follow whatever comes back.

The third is regional. Our variety line for the Italian 500 says standard Italian as spoken in Italy, with regional words noted where daily use differs, which is honest about what got left out. Cornetto against brioche made it in. A great deal else did not, and a week in Naples or Palermo will hand you words this list has never heard of.

The last one is speed, and no phrase fixes it. After a flight and six conversations your ear stops cutting the stream into words, and short rows help less than sleep does. Ask with più piano and expect to ask a second time.

Making it stick

Pick the table that matches tomorrow morning and read it out loud. The rows you recognise on a screen and the rows your mouth can produce while somebody waits are two different sets, and only the second set gets you served.

Vocabcord runs that rehearsal off the charger. Plug the phone in and one entry plays: the Italian, a pause, the English, a pause, the Italian again, once the Shortcuts automation is set up and the platform lets the audio through. A weighted sampler picks the entry, leaning towards whatever you have not heard for a while, and it makes no claim about what you have remembered. The case for a single word instead of a lesson is in One word per charge: why a lesson would fail.

These collections are web pages first and become app packs with text-to-speech audio afterwards, with no date attached. The other five lists and the method behind them sit on The Vocabcord 500, and the Italian 500 in full, work lane included, is The 500 Italian phrases you actually need.

Common questions

Do you pay before or after ordering in an Italian bar?

In a busy bar you pay at the till first and take the receipt to the counter, where it acts as your ticket. In a quiet one you order and settle on the way out. The row that saves you guessing is Pago prima o dopo? and the follow-up is Al banco o al tavolo? because standing at the counter is normal and a table costs more.

Do you need to validate a bus or train ticket in Italy?

For a paper regional or bus ticket, yes. Ask Devo convalidare il biglietto? and stamp it in the machine before you board, because an inspector counts an unstamped ticket as a fare dodge. E-tickets are already valid. Buy the paper ones at a tabaccheria or a newsstand, since Dove si comprano i biglietti dell'autobus? usually gets you sent to a shop rather than the driver.

What do you need to buy a SIM card in Italy?

A passport and a codice fiscale at most counters. Say Vorrei una SIM ricaricabile con internet. for a pay-as-you-go line with data, and ask Quanti giga sono inclusi? for the allowance. If you do not have the tax code yet, the first errand is Mi serve il codice fiscale. at the Agenzia delle Entrate.

What is the emergency number in Italy?

112, and Italians say it as one word, centododici. Ask a stranger with Chiami il centododici. and give the operator Qualcuno è ferito. if that is the situation. One number covers police, ambulance and fire. Have your address written down first, because no phrase list can supply that part.