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There's a different word for "hey". "Hey" in Italian is "Ehi". So no, ciao can't also mean "hey".
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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 ?
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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.
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Exceptions...in fact you can say "come stai oggi", but NOT "come stai triste oggi" (=come sei triste oggi")
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I have heared that also come sta (so without the i) is correct, is that true and when is that used then ?
"Come sta" would be the third person singular, "he", "she" , or the formal "you". "Stai" is the familiar form, used with "tu".
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would i say "Ciao, come voi state?" for hello, how are you (plural)?
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
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"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.
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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!
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Yes because "the same word" was quomodo = in which (=quo) manner (=modo), later on reduced in quomo: so I. didn't find reason to split in two words
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In " Fai come vuoi" come is translated "AS" in " Come stai " it is translated "HOW"
SO come 'how' you are is correct also?
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So I guess "stare" is the equivalent of "estar" in Spanish.
