Giving orders
There are several ways to give orders in Italian. Depending on the situation, you can use a bare infinitive, the imperative or the present subjunctive.
The infinitive is used on signs, eg:
"non fumare"(don't smoke)
or
"vietato fumare"(don't smoke)
In casual situations, eg when you're talking to your friends you can use the Imperative:
"chiudi la porta" (shut the door)
"vai fuori" (go out)
But the imperative is consider a rude vai to give order. You should use it only with people you're acquainted with and always add the phrase "per favore"(please), eg:
"chiudi la porta, per favore"
In formal situations, you should use the present subjunctive, and use the 3rd person:
"chiuda la porta" (shut the door)
"vada fuori" (go out)
Add "per favore" to make the order more kind:
"Per favore, chiuda la porta" (shut the door, please)
"Per favore, vada fuori" (please, go out)
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Making requests or invitations:
There're three ways of making requests in Italian: you can simply ask, using the indicative mode:
Mi passi una fetta di pane; (literally: Can you hand me a slice of bread?)
Mangi qualcosa? (literally: Will you eat something?)
The one above is an extremely informal way of making a request. To make it more a bit more polite, though keeping an informal tone, use the verb potere or volere followed by the infinitive:
Puoi dare a Marco questo libro? (Can you give Marco this book?)
Vuoi mangiare qualcosa? (literally: Will you eat something?)
the expression above can be used when you're quite sure that the listener will do what you're asking them to.
If it is doubtful that the listener will do what they're asked for, you can replace the indicative with the Present Conditional:
Mi passeresti una fetta di pane; (literally: Could you hand me a slice of bread?)
Mangeresti qualcosa? (literally: Would you eat something?)
If you strongly want somebody to do something, you can use the present conditional
of "potere" followed by the infinitive:
Potresti parlare più lentamente? Could you speak more slowly?
Giving advices:
There's only one way to give advices in Italian: use the present conditional of "dovere"
or "potere" followed by a present infinitive:
Dovresti andare più lentamente; You should go more slowly.
If you want to suggest a different line of action about something which happened in the past,you can use the past conditional followed by the infinitive:
Sara avrebbe dovuto essere più gentile con lui Sara should have been more kind with him.
Sarei dovuto tornare a casa prima I should have been back home sooner
Remember the rule about "potere", "dovere" and "volere": when forming coumpound tenses, they took the auxiliary verb of the verb which follows them.
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