Where do you live in Italian

How exactly do you say where do you live in Italian?

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!

Vivo a…
I live in…

Let’s start! Iniziamo!

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How do you say where do you live in Italian?

Dove vivi?

Dove vivi? is how you most commonly translate where do you live into Italian.

This common sentence in Italian is made of two elements.

Dove
Where

Vivi
You live

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. Its indicativo presente conjugation is as follows.

io	vivo
tu	vivi
lui, lei	vive
noi	viviamo
voi	vivete
loro	vivono

I coniugi Rossi vivono nella casa qui a destra.
Mr. and Mrs. Rossi live in the house on the right.

Vivo qui vicino, in una delle villette a schiera di recente costruzione.
I live nearby in one of the newly built townhouses.

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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.

io	abito
tu	abiti
lui, lei	abita
noi	abitiamo
voi	abitate
loro	abitano

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!

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Formality – Dove vive? Dove abita?

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 formal 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.

So, how do you formally ask for someone’s living area?

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

Now, what if in front of you is a group of people?

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Groups – Dove vivete? Dove abitate?

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 the verbs vivere/abitare according to the latter pronoun, which is voi.

From the tables in the previous paragraphs, you can see that the conjugations you have to use are voi vivete and voi abitate.

You can get rid of the pronoun, so you are left with vivete and abitate. You will use these to ask where do you live in Italian to groups of people!

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…)

And that’s it, now you know how to say where do you live in Italian in all its forms!

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