"Ciao, come stai?"

Translation: Hi, how are you?

[Biochemistry]

"Hello, how is the northern unit of dry measurement?" ;)

[JorgedeEsesarte]

I thoght the same...

[jeporcher]

Weird way to say "come stai".

[I_Hersey]

Can ciao also mean hey? I tried it and it said I was wrong, but could it?

[TheBareBears]

There's a different word for "hey". "Hey" in Italian is "Ehi". So no, ciao can't also mean "hey".

[Bellaaaax3]

What is more common in daily conversations? Ehi or ciao?

[marc.libra]

And when do you use 'tu sei' and 'tu stai', bothing meaning you are ?
In fact, what is the big difference between stare and essere ?

[Schynd]

You'll have to learn it on the go. You normally use "essere" for permanent features ("tu sei spagnolo") and "stare" for temporary states ("stai triste oggi?"). But of course you'll find exceptions to this rule.

[marc.libra]

I have heared that also come sta (so without the i) is correct, is that true and when is that used then ?

[giovanna60615]

"Come sta" would be the third person singular, "he", "she" , or the formal "you". "Stai" is the familiar form, used with "tu".

[frankmazuca]

would i say "Ciao, come voi state?" for hello, how are you (plural)?

[sandraycb]

I think "ciao, come state?" would be better because most of the time we don't use pronouns since the form of the verb already tells the pronoun we mean

[stevami]

The talking machine is so bad I started writing fuul sentences

[ErlendKamr]

How about that. A normal freaking sentence.

[anne_blythe]

What does come mean? It's very confusing

[RaviOnline]

"come" means "how".

It's easier to remember if you're coming from another Latin language as they sound very similar: "como" in Spanish, "comment" (pronounced as co-mon) in French.

[Rockall]

In French:  'how' = comment  'as'/'like' = comme

In Spanish: 'how' = cómo  'as'/'like' = como (without the accent)

You can see from the similarities that in their ancestor language Latin, both 'how' and 'like' descended from the SAME word for both concepts - and later split into two different words (just like we have in English).

Italian, being much closer to Latin in this respect, never developed a separate word for the two concepts like Spanish and French (and English) have, so it just uses 'come' for both!

[temetimo]

How is "stai" pronounced? it sounds like she is saying "sai"

[zlucien]

hey=ciao, it did not accept this?!

[leonardinh1]

molto bene! e tu? :)

[msaradj]

well i never seen this on my lesson so far :(

[3000letters]

In " Fai come vuoi" come is translated "AS"
in " Come stai " it is translated "HOW"

SO come 'how' you are is correct also?

[ExSquaredOver2]

So I guess "stare" is the equivalent of "estar" in Spanish.