Take care!

How do you say it in Italian?

Stammi bene

Words you should know	Stare (to stay) + bene (well)
When to use this	With 1 person you’re familiar with
When NOT to use this	With strangers and groups

For example, you can say…

Stammi bene, ci vedremo al tuo ritorno.
Take care, I will see you when you return.

Stammi is the contracted form of stai, an imperative conjugation of stare (to stay) and the indirect object pronoun mi, as in “stay to me”.

Stai + mi = Stammi

Abbi cura di te

Abbi cura di te is another way you can say take care in Italian. It’s once again appropriate to use with friends and people you are on familiar terms with.

Literally, we could translate it as “have care of you”.

Stammi bene and abbi cura di te are completely interchangeable and are used to address one person at a time.

Prenditi cura di te

Prenditi cura di te is the closest translation of take care in Italian, because the verb to take care is rendered here as prendersi cura, “to take oneself care”.

It’s suitable to use for friends and family and it literally means “take yourself care of yourself”, but I would say it’s slightly less common than the other two forms because it feels somewhat old, almost like what a true gentleman might say.

Riguardati

Riguardati comes from the verb riguardarsi, which is linked to the noun riguardo meaning respect or consideration. It literally means “look at yourself again”.

(Yes, I know, Italian can get weird.)

All these four sentences, however, are informal ways to say take care in Italian. Let’s see what the formal variants are in the next paragraph!

Si riguardi

When to use this	With 1 person you’re NOT familiar with
When NOT to use this	With friends, family and groups

When speaking formally, Italians address each other with the subject “she”, lei. Use Lei in the written form if you want to be very polite.

So, if you want to sound formal and wish someone to take care of themselves, stick to si riguardi.

Statemi bene

When to use this	With a group of people
When NOT to use this	With strangers (doh!) and 1 person at a time

In Italian, unlike English, there are two kinds of “you”. There is a singular “you” and then there is a plural “you”. If you’re speaking to a group, you’ll need to conjugate any verb or pronoun accordingly.

The plural form of stammi bene is statemi bene.

The other translations for saying take care in Italian would be:

But I actually have never heard these ones in a conversation, or even read them in a book. So, if you’re saying goodbye to a group of people, use statemi bene and you will impress them all!

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