Holidays in sunny Italy with lots of beach, sea, pizza and pasta are particularly high on the travel list for many this year. No wonder, the popular holiday destination is only a stone's throw away. However, the situation is somewhat different for most people with Italianlanguage skills. But here we can help! At least a few sentences are enough to communicate as well as possible.

We have the most important phrases for you at a glance! You should definitely know these five phrases and words when on vacation in Italy. 

1. Greeting

A simple "Ciao!" always works in Italy - it means something like "Hello! If you want to adapt the greeting to the time of day in the next step, you don't have to remember too complicated formulations, because most of them are familiar to us anyway. "Good day" means "Buongiorno", "Buonasera" means "Good evening" and "Buonanotte" means "Good night!

2. How's it going?

"Come stai?" - This is how you ask someone how things are going. "Bene, grazie" is usually the answer if everything is going well. If you suddenly end up in the middle of a conversation in Italian and don't understand a word, you can get out of the situation by simply saying "Non parlo italiano" - "Unfortunately, I don't speak Italian".

3. please & thank you

It's often the little things that put a smile on other people's faces. That's why it's enough to at least be able to say thank you for something in the local language when you're on holiday. In Italian it's quite simple: "Per favor" means "Please", you can say thank you with "Grazie" or the escalating form "Grazie Mille"!

4. Excuse me.

If you want to ask someone for help, for example, because you want to ask for directions, it's quite simple in Italian. You use "scusi" to apologize to someone you're on first-name terms with. "Mi scusa" is used when you are on familiar terms with a person. If you then want to ask for directions, for example, you simply say: "Scusi. Dov'è la toilette?" - "Excuse me, where is the toilet?"

5. the bill, please!

Sure, a few words of Italian aren't enough to order a whole meal in a restaurant, but at least asking for the bill is easy. If you want to pay when you go to a restaurant in Italy, simply ask the staff for "Il conto, per favore", which means "The bill, please!