Valentine’s Day may be over, but there’s never a bad time to learn a romantic Italian greeting, wouldn’t you agree?
Ciao, amore mio!
Hello, my love!
Hi, my love!
Let’s break it down into its component parts:
ciao
Ciao is a standard informal greeting in Italian that translates as hello / hi when you meet someone or bye when you part ways.
amore
Amore means love. Just like its English equivalent, it can also function a term of endearment.
mio
Mio is the first person masculine singular possessive adjective meaning my.
Note that mio is used when referring to both men and women. This is because it modifies the masculine noun amore, not the person themselves.
You will also hear Italian people say mio amore with the two words inverted, but used in this way, it is almost always preceded by the definite article il (the) and doesn’t function as an affectionate form of address. Consider the following sentences for example:
- Il mio amore per te è infinito. = My love for you is infinite.
- Il mio amore è andato via. = My love went away.
- Non meriti il mio amore. = You don’t deserve my love.
Note that Italians also use amore with their children, not just their romantic partners. For example, the sentence below could refer to either a husband/wife who is returning from a business trip, or a son/daughter who was away for a few days on a school trip.
Il mio amore torna a casa questa sera, finalmente!
My love is coming back home tonight, finally!
Because ciao can also mean bye, an alternative interpretation of this phrase could be Bye, my love! When the meaning is bye rather than hello, you can choose to repeat the word ciao twice (ciao ciao = bye bye).
When addressing your children or your family as a whole, it isn’t uncommon to use the plural Ciao, amori miei! (Hello, my loves!)
Heather Broster is a graduate with honours in linguistics from the University of Western Ontario. She is an aspiring polyglot, proficient in English and Italian, as well as Japanese, Welsh, and French to varying degrees of fluency. Originally from Toronto, Heather has resided in various countries, notably Italy for a period of six years. Her primary focus lies in the fields of language acquisition, education, and bilingual instruction.
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