Nice to Meet you in Italian with Piacere
There’s one word you can use to say “nice to meet you” in Italian: piacere.
It’s really useful because you can use it in formal and informal situations.
Here’s how to pronounce it:
| Piacere | Pyah-CHEH-reh |
For example:
Informal
Ciao, sono Katie. Piacere! -Hi, I’m Katie, nice to meet you!
Formal
Buongiorno, sono Katie. Piacere! -Hello, I’m Katie. Nice to meet you!
Or if you want to say “really nice to meet you”, you can say:
| Molto piacere | MOHL-toh pyah-CHEH-reh |
For example:
Questo è il mio compagno Matteo -This is my partner Matteo
Molto piacere! -Really nice to meet you!
How to Say Nice to Meet You in Italian: Informal
Piacere is the shorter version for "nice to meet you". If you want the longer version, you can say:
| Piacere di conoscerti | Pyah-CHEH-reh dee koh-NOH-sher-tee |
The reason this is informal is because it has the informal word for you on the end: ti.
For example:
Ciao, piacere di conoscerti! Sono Katie. -Hi, nice to meet you! I’m Katie.
How to Say Nice to Meet You in Italian: Formal
To say “nice to meet you” with people you don’t know very well, you can say:
| Piacere di conoscerla | Pya-CHEH-reh dee koh-NOH-sher-lah |
La is the formal word for “you”. It can be used for both men and women.
For example:
Piacere di conoscerla signora -Nice to meet you ma’am
How to reply to Nice to Meet you in Italian
To say “nice to meet you too” in Italian, you can say:
| Piacere mio | Pya-CHER-eh MEE-oh |
Literally, it’s like saying “the pleasure’s mine”. It can be used in both formal and informal situations.
For example:
Informal
Ciao, sono Katie. Piacere. -Hi, I’m Katie. Nice to meet you.
Ciao, sono Mary. Piacere mio. -Hi, I’m Mary. Nice to meet you too.
Formal
Buongiorno, piacere di conoscerla -Hello, nice to meet you.
Buongiorno, piacere mio -Hello, nice to meet you too.
How to Say Nice to Meet You in Italian: Formal and Informal: Review
Let’s review the main ways to say “nice to meet you” in Italian.
| Piacere | Pyah-CHEH-reh |
| Molto piacere | MOHL-toh pyah-CHEH-reh |
| Piacere di conoscerti | Pyah-CHEH-reh dee koh-NOH-sher-tee |
| Piacere di conoscerla | Pya-CHEH-reh dee koh-NOH-sher-lah |
K: Ciao a tutti e benvenuti! Hi everyone and welcome to “Learn Italian with Joy of Languages”.
M: You’re going to see how to say “nice to meet you” in Italian. It’s a really useful greeting that helps you come across as polite and glad to be meeting Italians.
K: Before we get started, can we ask you a quick favore ? If you’re listening to this on your podcast app, could you hit the subscribe or follow button? This way you’ll get notified when we release a new episode and you’ll help our podcast grow so that we can keep making free lessons like this. Grazie!
K: The great news is, there’s one word you can always use in Italian to say “nice to meet you”. It works whether you want to be formal or informal.
M: Piacere (x2)
K: It’s a bit like the English word pleased, like in “pleased to meet you”.
M: This will likely be one of the first words you'll say to someone in Italy, so getting the pronunciation right will make a good first impression. You'll sound like you really know Italian, and it will stop Italians switching to English right away.
K: The first three letters of this word are p-i-a. But when the “i” and “a” are said together, it becomes more like a ya sound: pya, pya
M: Pia cere (x2).
K: There are also the letters c-e in piacere. When you have “c” and “e” next to each other in Italian, it makes a ch sound: ce, ce
M: Pia ce re (x2)
K: And finally, the word ends in an “e”. It would be easy to think it’s pronounced pia-ch-er-ay , or maybe even pia-ch-er-ee . But it’s a short eh sound: eh, eh.
M: Piacer e (x2)
K: If you want to say “really nice to meet you” you can just add molto on the front. Molto means very.
M: Molto piacere - very nice to meet you
Molto - very
Piacere - pleased
M: Molto piacere
K: We’ve seen that piacere works for both formal and informal. It’s actually a shorter version of a longer phrase. But if you go with the full version, you’ll need to tweak it a bit depending on whether you’re being formal or informal.
The informal version is:
M: Piacere di conoscerti - Nice to meet you. Literally:
Piacere - pleasure
Di - of
Conoscerti - to know you
K: We’re using the same word we’ve seen before, piacere . Then there’s also added conoscerti . This can be hard to pronounce because we’ve got this “sh” sound, like in the word “short”.
M: Cono sc erti (x2)
K: Nice to meet you, or as Italians say, “pleasure to meet you”, again is:
M: Piacere di conoscerti (x2)
K: The reason this is informal is because you’re using the informal “you” on the end: ti.
So if you want to say the formal way, you just change the informal “you” to the formal one: la.
M: Piacere di conoscerla - nice to meet you. Literally:
Piacere - pleasure
Di - of
Conoscerla - to know you (formal)
K: La looks a bit like it could be a feminine word because words ending in “a” usually are in Italian. But this is the formal that we use with both men and women.
M: Piacere di conoscerla (x2)
M: If you’re not sure whether to use the formal or informal you, don’t worry too much. Italians will understand that you’re learning and won’t be offended if you get it wrong.
K: But as a guide, the formal you is used in Italian with people that you don't know very well, while the informal you is used with friends and young people.
M: And remember with this phrase in particular, if you don’t want to worry about all that, you can also just use the word we said at the beginning, it’s the most common way, and it works in the formal and informal.
K: Can you remember the word?
[...]
M: Piacere (x2)
K: Let’s review the other expressions. How can you say “really nice to meet you”?
[...]
M: Molto piacere (x2)
K: What’s the way of saying “nice to meet you” that’s informal?
[...]
M: Piacere di conoscerti (x2)
K: And the formal way of saying “nice to meet you”?
[...]
M: Piacere di conoscerla. (x2)
K: Now you know four ways to say “nice to meet you in Italian”. But what about how to reply if someone says this to you? To find out, head over to our website by clicking on the link in the description. Or you can go to italian.joyoflanguages.com/podcast and search for episode 169.
M - See you next time.
K - Or as we say in Italian.
Alla prossima!
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
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Vocabulary
Molto piacere = Really nice to meet you
Piacere mio = Nice to meet you too
Piacere di conoscerti = Nice to meet you (informal)
Piacere di conoscerla = Nice to meet you (formal)
Piacere = Nice to meet you
Flashcards: How to Say Nice to Meet You in Italian
Not sure how it works? Click here to watch the tutorial
