What on Earth are Italian Reflexive Verbs?

Italian reflexive verbs are a topic you can’t miss.

They’re so commonly used that one of the first Italian phrases you learned was probably a reflexive verb: mi chiamo (my name is, or literally: I call myself).

You need Italian reflexive verbs to talk about everyday things, like daily routines and feelings.

Here, you’ll learn what an Italian reflexive verb is and how to use it.

Italian Reflexive Verbs Explained: What They Are

The term reflexive verb sounds complicated, but it’s just the grammar nerd name for verbs where you talk about doing something to yourself.

We have this in English, too, when we say “myself.” For example, “I ask myself” means I’m asking back to myself, not someone else.

If you look at these two sentences:

Mi chiedo - I ask myself

Chiedo a mia sorella - I ask my sister

Can you see which one is an example of a reflexive verb? If you guessed the first one, you’re right! You’re doing the asking to yourself. If you ask someone else (like your sister), it’s no longer reflexive.

Italian Reflexive Verbs Explained: How to Use Them

Although we sometimes have reflexive verbs in English, Italian often uses them where we wouldn’t.

Let’s have a look at how reflexive verbs work in Italian with the words for myself, yourself and so on in Italian, using the reflexive verb vestirsi (to get dressed).

Mi vesto	I get dressed (lit. I dress myself )	Mee VES-toh
Ti vesti	You get dressed (lit. you dress yourself )	Tee VES-tee
Si veste	He/she gets dressed (lit. dresses himself /herself )	See VES-teh
Ci vestiamo	We get dressed (lit. we dress ourselves )	Chee ves-TEEAH-moh
Vi vestite	You (plural) get dressed (lit. dress yourselves )	Vee ves-TEET-eh
Si vestono	They get dressed (lit. they dress themselves )	See VES-toh-noh

For example:

La mattina faccio colazione e poi mi vesto -In the morning, I have breakfast and then get dressed

Ci vestiamo in fretta per non perdere il treno -We get dressed quickly so we don’t miss the train

As you can see in the table, reflexive verbs end in the same way as normal verbs.

For example, we put an -o on the end when we talk about “I”, or -iamo to say “we”. You can review how this works on our post on the present tense .

21 Common Italian Reflexive Verbs

Here’s a list of really common reflexive verbs.

Since it’s not always easy to tell if a verb is reflexive in Italian, you can start by familiarizing yourself with some of the verbs on this list and practice them as you go along.

Addormentarsi	To fall asleep	A-dor-men-TAR-see
Allenarsi	To work out	Al-leh-NAR-see
Alzarsi	To get up	Al-ZAR-see
Annoiarsi	To get bored	An-no-YAR-see
Arrabbiarsi	To get angry	Ar-rab-BYAR-see
Chiamarsi	To call yourself	Kyah-MAR-see
Confondersi	To get confused	Kon-FON-der-see
Divertirsi	To have fun, to enjoy yourself	Dee-ver-TEER-see
Lamentarsi	To complain	Lah-men-TAR-see
Farsi	To make yourself	FAR-see
Innamorarsi	To fall in love	In-na-mor-AR-see
Lavarsi	To wash yourself	La-VAR-see
Pettinarsi	To brush your hair	Peht-tee-NAR-see
Prepararsi	To prepare yourself / get ready	Preh-pah-RAR-see
Riposarsi	To rest	Ree-poh-SAR-see
Rilassarsi	To relax	Ree-lah-SAR-see
Sedersi	To sit down	Seh-DER-see
Stancarsi	To get tired	Stan-KAR-see
Svegliarsi	To wake up	Sveh-LYAR-see
Ubriacarsi	To get drunk	Oo-bree-a-KAR-see
Vestirsi	To get dressed	Ves-TEER-see

For example:

Mi addormento sempre sui treni -I always fall asleep on trains

Mio marito si diverte a esplorare le città italiane -My husband enjoys exploring Italian cities

Se beviamo troppo Chianti, ci ubriachiamo! -If we drink too much Chianti , we’ll get drunk!

Mi faccio un caffè la mattina - I make myself a coffee in the mornings

When you look up a verb in the dictionary, reflexive verbs will end in - si , like you can see in the table above. So that’s another way of knowing if a verb is reflexive or not.

Italian Reflexive Verbs Explained: 2 Things To Remember

When you use Italian reflexive verbs, here are the 2 most important things to know:

remember to put these little words mi,ti,si,ci,vi,si (called pronouns) at the front of the verb.

If you don’t use them, the sentence won’t make sense or could mean something different.

If you said: vesto , the person you’re speaking to would be wondering “you dress? Yourself? Your friend?”

To make it clear that you’re talking about yourself getting dressed, you need to add mi in front:

So not:

❌ Vesto - I dress …

But instead:

✅ Mi vesto - I get dressed up (lit. I dress myself)

Because it’s not always the same in English and Italian, it can be confusing trying to understand whether you should use a reflexive verb or not.

There are some clues that a verb might be reflexive in Italian. For instance:

English verbs that include “get” (e.g. get bored, get angry…)
Verbs related to daily routines

But there’s not always an exact way to figure it out, so the best thing is just to start by learning the common reflexive verbs and build from there.

What on Earth are Italian Reflexive Verbs: Review

You’ve seen that Italian reflexive verbs are similar to normal verbs, but they include an extra little word to show that you’re doing the action to yourself.

Let’s review a common reflexive verb ( vestirsi - to get dressed) to see how they work again.

Mi vesto	I get dressed (lit. I dress myself )	Mee VES-toh
Ti vesti	You get dressed (lit. you dress yourself )	Tee VES-tee
Si veste	He / she gets dressed (lit. dresses himself / herself )	See VES-teh
Ci vestiamo	We get dressed (lit. we dress ourselves )	Chee ves-TEEAH-moh
Vi vestite	You (plural) get dressed (lit. dress yourselves )	Vee ve-STEE.teh
Si vestono	They get dressed (lit. they dress themselves )	See VES-toh-noh

K: Ciao a tutti e benvenuti! Hi everyone and welcome to “Learn Italian with Joy of Languages”.

M: Do you remember the first phrases you learned in Italian? One of them was probably mi chiamo (my name is) or come ti chiami (what’s your name?). These are two examples of reflexive verbs.

K: Which shows you that reflexive verbs crop up all the time, even in the beginner phrases. The term reflexive verb sounds complicated, but it’s just the grammar nerd name for verbs where you talk about doing something to yourself. We have this in English, too, when we say “myself.” For example, “I ask myself” means I’m asking back to myself, not someone else.

M: That’s why they’re called reflexive, they’re talking about something reflecting back to yourself. The person who does and receives the action is the same.

K: Mi chiamo, as in mi chiamo Katie, is reflexive because the literal translation is “I call myself”, or, word for word, “mi” (myself), “chiamo” (I call).

M: Let’s hear some more examples. Here’s a typical conversation where we’re talking about what we do in the mornings.

M: Mi sveglio, mi alzo subito

K: Ti alzi subito? Io mi alzo subito

M: …e mi faccio il caffè.

K: Io mi faccio il caffè, tu vai al bar.

M: Ok, ma almeno mi vesto. Tu rimani in pigiama tutto il giorno.

K: È vero… però la domenica. Mi rilasso!

K: Matteo said:

M: mi sveglio, mi alzo subito - I wake up, I get up straight away. Literally:

Mi - myself

Sveglio - I wake

Mi - myself

Alzo - I rise

Subito - straight away

K: You’ve just heard two reflexive verbs. I wake up in Italian is:

M: Mi sveglio (x2)

K: I get up is:

Mi alzo (x2)

K: Reflexive verbs have one extra word that regular verbs don’t. Did you catch a small word when Matteo was talking?

M: Mi sveglio, mi alzo

K: It’s the word “mi” at the beginning. It’s sort of the Italian for “myself”.

M: Mi sveglio, mi alzo. Literally: I wake myself up, I get myself up.

K: Or as Italians say it mi (myself), sveglio (I wake). Mi (myself) alzo (I rise).

M: So not just sveglio, but mi sveglio.

K: We’ve seen that reflexive verbs exist in English, like when we say, “I ask myself.” But in Italian, they’re used in situations where we wouldn’t use them in English, like with waking up. In English, we say, “I wake up,” but in Italian it’s “I wake myself up”.

M: Because it’s not something you can translate directly from English, it can be hard to know when to add the mi (or myself) at the beginning.

K: There are a few ways to know when to use a reflexive verb in Italian. It’s often when the person who does and receives the action is the same. For example, I wake up, mi sveglio, if you think about it, you are the same person who wakes up and is being woken up.

M: We often use reflexive verbs when talking about our daily routine, or situations where we use “get” in English, like “get dressed”.

K: If this explanation feels a bit fuzzy, we’re really sorry, that’s because the topic is a bit fuzzy in Italian!

M: Often you just need to learn which ones are reflexive and which ones aren’t.

K: The good news is, you’ve already started doing that with the expression mi chiamo (my name is…) You’ve probably not stopped to think about mi chiamo being reflexive (literally “myself, I call”), but you learnt that you had to say mi chiamo and not just chiamo .

M: You can gradually learn other reflexive verbs in the same way, as phrases, little by little as you come across them.

K: Then I said to Matteo:

M: Ti alzi subito? - You get up straight away? Literally:

Ti - yourself

Alzi - you rise

Subito - straight away

K: This time I wasn’t talking about myself anymore, I was talking about Matteo. So now I had to use “yourself”. And in Italian that’s

M: Ti

For example, ti alzi - literally: you get yourself up

K: Or, in the order that Italians say it: ti (yourself) alzi (you rise).

These little words, like myself and yourself in English, or mi and ti in Italian, are called pronouns. One thing learners often forget is matching the right pronoun to the right person— mi for myself, ti for yourself.

M: It’s worth practicing a few times to get the hang of it.

K: Then I said:

M: Io mi alzo subito! – I get up straight away.

Io - I

Mi - myself

Alzo - I rise

Subito - straight away

K: Matteo is a nightowl, so he usually stays in bed for a long time after he’s woken up and only gets up after Brody, our dog, has been jumping all over him and barking.

M: [...]

K: Then Matteo said:

M: e mi faccio il caffè - and I make myself a coffee. Literally:

E - and

Mi - myself

Faccio - I make

Il - the

Caffè – coffee

K: Here in English you can see how we also would use “myself” to emphasise you’re making the coffee for you, not someone else.

But Matteo has a nice part of his routine where he likes to see people in the neighborhood in the morning, so I said:

M: Io mi faccio il caffè - I make myself a coffee

Io - I

Mi - myself

Faccio - make

Il caffè - the coffee

M: Tu vai al bar - you go to the café

Tu - you

Vai - you go

Al - to the

Bar - café (in Italian, bar means “coffee bar”, not the place where you drink beer and cocktails)

K: Then Matteo replied:

M: Ok, ma almeno mi vesto - Ok, but at least I get dressed. Literally:

Ok - ok

Ma - but

Almeno - at least

Mi - myself

Vesto - I dress

K: As we mentioned, verbs to do with daily routine or using the word “get” are often reflexive in Italian. That’s why “get dressed” is reflexive. In Italian, I get dressed, literally “myself, I dress” again is:

M: Mi vesto (x2)

K: Then Matteo said:

M: Tu rimani in pigiama tutto il giorno - you stay in your pyjamas all day. Literally:

Tu - you

Rimani - you remain

In - in

Pigiama - pajamas

Tutto - all

Il - the

Giorno - day

K: I do like to spend a lot of time in my pajamas. I may even sometimes do something really un-Italian and take Brody for a walk with my pajamas under my jeans.

K: Then I said to Matteo:

M: È vero… però la domenica. Mi rilasso! - that’s true… but on Sundays. I relax! Literally:

È - it is

Vero - true

Però - but

La - the

Domenica - Sunday

Mi - myself

Rilasso - relax

K: So that brings us to the final reflexive verb. I relax, literally: myself, I relax:

M: Mi rilasso (x2)

K: You might be wondering, why is “relax” reflexive? In Italian, relaxing isn’t just something you do in general, it’s something you do for yourself. You’re making yourself feel calm.

M: Again, sometimes it’s just a case of learning which verbs are reflexive in Italian, but there’s no rush. You can start with the most common phrases and gradually build from there.

K: Let’s see what you can remember with a little quiz. What's Italian for myself? That little word we put in front of the verb.

[...]

M: Mi ,

K: And how would you say “I wake up”? Literally “myself, I wake”?

M: Mi sveglio (x2)

K: I get up? Literally “myself, I rise”:

M: Mi alzo (x2)

K: “I get dressed”? Literally “myself I dress”:

[...]

M: Mi vesto (x2)

[...]

K: And what about “I relax?” Myself, I relax:

[...]

M: Mi rilasso (x2)

[...]

K: And the Italian for yourself?

[...]

M: Ti (x2)

K: So how would you say “you get up”, literally “yourself, you rise”

[...]

M: Ti alzi (x2)

K: Let’s hear the whole conversation again

M: Mi sveglio, mi alzo subito

K: Ti alzi subito? Io mi alzo subito

M: …e mi faccio il caffè.

K: Io mi faccio il caffè, tu vai al bar.

M: Ok, ma almeno mi vesto. Tu rimani in pigiama tutto il giorno.

K: È vero… però la domenica. Mi rilasso!

K: The biggest difficulty with reflexive verbs in Italian is knowing which ones are reflexive, so they need that little “mi” in front, and which ones aren’t. We recommended starting with a few common ones and building from there, so to help, we’ve put together a list for you.

M: You’ll find the most common Italian reflexive verbs over on our blog post – you can click the link in the description or visit italian.joyoflanguages.com/podcast and search for episode 171.

M: See you next time.

K: Or as we say in Italian.

Alla prossima!

What on Earth are Italian Reflexive Verbs: Quiz and Vocabulary Cards

Time to check your understanding and remember everything you just learned! Below you’ll find a mini-quiz and some vocabulary cards to help it all go in.

Quiz

How much did you learn? Find out in the quiz!

Click here to take the quiz for this episode: What on Earth are Italian Reflexive Verbs

Vocabulary

Ti riposi = You rest (lit. yourself you rest)

Mi riposo = I rest (lit. myself I rest)

Ti vesti = You get dressed (lit. yourself you dress)

Mi faccio un caffè la mattina = I make myself a coffee in the morning

Mi sveglio = I wake up (lit. myself I wake)

Mi alzo subito = I get up (lit. myself I rise) straight away

Mi vesto = I get dressed (lit. myself I dress)

Mi rilasso = I relax (lit. myself I relax)