Everything You Need to Know About Italian Subject Pronouns

Understanding Italian subject pronouns is an essential step to building fluency and proficiency in Italian – it helps you learn quickly and accurately. The subject and the verb are the basic elements of any sentence, and you need a solid understanding of these elements to develop Italian language skills.

In this article we’ll look at subject pronouns in Italian. These are used to express or replace the subject in a sentence. The subject and the verb are so closely related that they are almost inseparable from each other, so we will be talking about verbs in this article, too. However, if you want to know more about verbs in particular, check our Italian verb conjugation guide.

What are subject pronouns?

Before we delve into Italian subject pronouns, let’s start with the basics – what are subject pronouns?

Subject pronouns are a category of personal pronoun that refers to the subject of a sentence, so they indicate who or what performs the action described by the verb. It can be useful to understand what subject pronouns are in English before we approach them in Italian. The chart below shows the English subject pronouns.

In English, every sentence needs to at least have a subject and a verb in order to make sense, as a verb cannot stand on its own. You can see the subject and verb in the following examples:

• I am working.
  (‘I’ is the subject and ‘am’ is the verb.)

• She went home.
  (‘She’ is the subject and ‘went’ is the verb.)

• We don’t smoke.
  (‘We’ is the subject and ‘don’t smoke’ is the verb.)

As we will see, this is not the case in Italian.

Italian subject pronouns

Italian subject pronouns generally correspond to English pronouns in the way they are classified, but there are some important differences.

Let’s look at the characteristics of Italian subject pronouns and their similarities to and differences from English subject pronouns.

What is the ‘person’?

First of all, what is the meaning of ‘1st, 2nd and 3rd person’ in the tables above? The ‘person’ is a grammatical category that corresponds to the possible ‘roles’ of the subject in a sentence. These are:

1st person: the speaker
2nd person: the listener
3rd person: someone else, who is neither the speaker nor the listener

Each of these ‘roles’ can be covered by a single subject, which would need a singular pronoun, or multiple subjects, which would need a plural pronoun.

Implied subject

A basic difference between English and Italian is that in Italian, the subject or the subject pronoun is not needed in order for a sentence to make sense. The subject can be ‘implied,’ which means that it does not have to be directly stated. In fact, it is much more common for Italians to omit the subject of a sentence if it is clear who the sentence refers to.

You might be wondering – if the function of the subject pronoun is to indicate who or what performs the action, how do we know this crucial information if the subject is omitted?

The answer is in the verb. In Italian, each verb normally has different forms for each person, so by looking at the ending of the verb, it’s possible to understand what the subject of the sentence is.

Look at the following sentences:

Parlo italiano. (I speak Italian.)
Parli italiano. (You speak Italian.)
Parliamo italiano. (We speak Italian.)

As you can see, the verb forms in the three sentences are different, even though they all belong to the same verb, parlare (to speak), in the same verb tense. ‘Parlo’ corresponds to the 1st person singular (io), ‘parli’ to the 2nd person singular (tu), and ‘parliamo’ to the 1st person plural (noi). When you know the forms of this verb, you also know which is the (implied) subject of each verb form, without the need for the subject pronoun. This is how Italian verb conjugation works.

English verb conjugation is much simpler, so the three example sentences all have the same verb form, ‘speak,’ despite having different subjects. Therefore if the subject pronouns were not clearly stated, we wouldn’t have any way of knowing who performed the action described by the verb.

Tu, Lei and voi: What is the equivalent of the English ‘you’?

There are three possible subject pronouns equivalent to the English pronoun ‘you.’ This is because English uses the same word, ‘you,’ when addressing one person or multiple people, while Italian uses one word to address a single person and a different word to address multiple people.

Moreover, English does not have separate formal and informal pronouns like Italian does. So here’s an explanation of how to use the Italian words for ‘you’:

Tu: Informal ‘you’

When ‘you’ is meant to address a single listener informally, the Italian equivalent is ‘tu,’ as in the following example:

Paolo, (tu) vuoi un bicchiere d’acqua?
(Paolo, would you like a glass of water?)

Lei: Formal ‘you’

When ‘you’ is meant to address a single listener formally, in Italian we use the subject pronoun ‘Lei.’ It is sometimes capitalized in writing to distinguish it from ‘lei,’ the 3rd person feminine singular pronoun.

It’s worth mentioning that the verbs always have to match the subject pronoun in order for the sentence to make sense, so when using ‘Lei’ you would have to use 3rd person singular verbs. See the example below, where the verb is underlined:

Signor Rossi, (Lei) vuole un bicchiere d’acqua?
(Mr Rossi, would you like a glass of water?)

Voi: Plural ‘you’

When ‘you’ is meant to address more than one listener, we use the subject pronoun ‘voi.’ In this case, it does not matter whether you are addressing the listener formally or informally, as there is only one form for plural. In the past, the pronoun ‘Loro’ was used to speak formally in the plural, but this is no longer in use today.

Ragazzi, (voi) volete un bicchiere d’acqua?
(Guys, would (you) like a glass of water?)

Use of ‘tu’ and ‘Lei’

We’ve mentioned that in Italian there is an informal and a formal way of addressing other people. So when are you supposed to use the informal ‘tu’ and when should you use the formal ‘Lei’? Generally you would use ‘Lei’ with strangers and in a professional context, and you would use ‘tu’ with family and friends.

Nowadays the formal address is less common than it used to be. For example, among young people (let’s say under 30) it’s common to use ‘tu’ even with strangers, if they are about the same age or younger. But ‘Lei’ is definitely still commonly used with people you don’t know and those who are older than you.

For example, when you enter a shop or a restaurant, conventional wisdom would require you to use ‘Lei,’ but nowadays many people would use ‘tu’ if the person helping them is about the same age or younger.

‘Tu’ is also often used with colleagues, especially if you have known them for a while. However, it is still more common to use ‘Lei’ with your boss or senior colleagues. In general, when in doubt, it is better to try and use the formal ‘Lei’ to avoid being perceived as rude, even though today’s social level of formality is lower than it used to be.

Lui, lei and loro

The third person singular is the only case that features a gender distinction in Italian subject pronouns. This means that there are two different pronouns to refer to male and female – ‘lei’ for female and ‘lui’ for male.

English is similar in this respect, as it also has two pronouns – ‘he’ for male and ‘she’ for female. If a man or a woman is talking about themselves, though, they would both say ‘io’ (I).

This difference is not found in the plural subject pronoun ‘loro,’ which is used for both male and female subjects. Check the example below to see the three subject pronouns used in context:

Ti presento Sara e Cosimo. (Loro) sono italiani. Lui è di Venezia, lei di Mantova.
(Let me introduce you to Sara and Cosimo. They are Italian. He is from Venice and she is from Mantua.)

Wrapping up

The subject is an essential part of any sentence, so whether you are a complete beginner or a more advanced speaker, a grasp of Italian subject pronouns is essential to building a good level of accuracy and fluency.

In this article, we’ve laid out the basics of subject pronouns and the main features of subject pronouns in Italian, including similarities and differences with English subject pronouns. With this knowledge, you’re ready to advance in your Italian language skills. What’s next?