Where do you live?

How do you say it in Italian?

Dove vivi?

Words you should know	Dove (where) + vivere (to live)
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…

Dove vivi? – Non te lo dico!
Where do you live? – I won’t tell you!

Vivi comes from vivere, to live, which is a verb that belongs to the second -ere group.

Dove abiti?

Instead of vivere, the question where do you live in Italian can also be rendered with the verb abitare, meaning to dwell.

Differently from the English verb to dwell, however, abitare is a very common verb and dove abiti? is just as common as dove vivi?. They are fully interchangeable.

For example, you can say…

Abito nella casa in fondo alla via, quella con il tetto rosso.
I live in the house down the street, the one with the red roof.

Dove abitano i tuoi nonni?
Where do your grandparents live?

To ask where do you live in Italian, say…

Dove abiti? and dove vivi?, however, are informal ways to ask where do you live in Italian. Let’s see what the formal variants are in the next paragraph!

Dove vive? Dove abita?

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.

These questions use the third person singular conjugation. Basically, when speaking formally, Italians address each other with the subject “she”, lei.

Dove vivete? Dove abitate?

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.

For example, you can say…

Dove abitate, ragazzi? – Abitiamo in centro.
Where do you guys live? – We live downtown.

Vivete nella casa di fronte alla banca? – No, viviamo in quella subito di fianco.
Do you live in the house across the street from the bank? – No, we live in the one immediately next door.

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What’s your address?

I advise you not to ask such a personal question unless you really need to, but for the sake of completeness, here’s what you have to say to ask for someone’s address in Italian.

If someone asks you where do you live in Italian, here are a few answers you can use:

Just make sure you pick the correct preposition:

• countries use the preposition in (in Italia, in Germania, in Francia, in Svizzera, in Spagna…)
• cities use the preposition a (a Londra, a Madrid, a Parigi, a Roma…)

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