How do you say are you ready in Italian?

How exactly do you say are you ready in Italian? What’s more appropriate to ask depending on the relationship between you and the other person?

In this lesson, we will take a look at the different ways you can translate this sentence into Italian. Read on to learn them all!

Let’s start! Iniziamo!

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How do you say are you ready in Italian?

Singular: Sei pronto? Sei pronta?

Sei pronto? and sei pronta? are the translations for are you ready in Italian when you are addressing only one person you are on familiar terms with, such as a friend or a relative.

The reason why there are two forms of the adjective “ready” is that Italian, unlike English, has two genders: masculine and feminine.

Any noun and adjective must agree with this gender. So if you’re talking to a man, you will use pronto, because that’s the masculine adjective. If you’re talking to a woman, you will use pronta because that’s the feminine form of the adjective.

That said, this common sentence in Italian is made of two elements.

Sei
You are, or are you, singular

Pronto/a
Ready

Sei pronta per uscire, Stefania?
Are you ready to go out, Stefania?

Sei pronto, Mattia? Farai tardi a scuola se non ti sbrighi!
Are you ready, Mattia? You’ll be late for school if you don’t hurry!

Sei is the second person singular conjugation of essere, to be, in the present tense.

io	sono
tu	sei
lui, lei	è
noi	siamo
voi	siete
loro	sono

For example, you could say…

Laura, hai visto dove sono i miei occhiali?
Laura, have you seen where my glasses are?

La bottiglia è vuota. Devo andarla a riempire.
The bottle is empty. I have to go and refill it.

Now, what do you have to say to ask are you ready in Italian to groups of people? You will need to conjugate the verb essere in the second person plural. Let’s see what this form is in the next paragraph.

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Plural: Siete pronti? Siete pronte?

Siete pronti? and siete pronte? are the translations for are you ready in Italian when you are addressing more than one person.

Italian has two kinds of “you”, unlike English. There’s a singular “you” and then there’s a plural “you”. If you are addressing a group, you will need to conjugate any verb or pronoun accordingly, and don’t forget about the gender as well!

Look at the conjugation table again. The subject pronoun for the second person plural is voi, and its essere verb conjugation is siete.

As said, we’ll also have to change the adjective gender itself in its plural forms:

• pronti, masculine plural
• pronte, feminine plural

There’s another caveat here.
You will use the masculine form of the adjective if there’s at least one male person in the group you are talking to.
If the group is composed of only females, then use the female version of the adjective.

Siete pronti, bambini? La zia vi sta aspettando!
Are you ready, children? Auntie is waiting for you!

Siete pronte? Come sarebbe a dire, non ancora?!
Are you ready? What do you mean, not yet!

Now, how do you say are you ready in Italian when you need to be polite? Keep on reading to find out!

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Formal: È pronto? È pronta?

If you are just visiting Italy and often meet new people, unless you both agree on using the informal pronoun tu you will have to stick to the polite pronoun Lei when talking to other adults and people you are not on familiar terms with. With kids, it’s customary to use tu, no matter the degree of familiarity.

This is the equivalent of she in English. Basically, when speaking formally, Italians address each other with the subject “she”, lei.

That said, how do you formally say are you ready in Italian?

And that’s it, now you know how to ask are you ready in Italian in all situations!

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