Tutorial Transcript

Hi everyone and welcome back to my channel! In today's video we'll talk about how to respond to "grazie". A girl thanked me for having recommended her the book that you can see in the story and I reposted her story, writing "Figurati!". And many people asked me: "What does figurati mean?" And so it occurred to me to make a video on this topic and to offer an updated version of this video because, actually, I've already made this video a long time ago, but it's kind of old ---don't go looking for it, watch this one only. How do we, Italians, respond to a person that tells us "grazie" (=thank you)? There are several options. The standard option is "prego" (=you're welcome). If someone tells you "grazie", they thank you, the most normal, most natural and most classic thing is to say "prego". But obviously, in the day-to-day use of the language there are other expressions and other forms that are used very often. So, next to the classic expression "prego" there are other expressions as well. Let's see what these expressions are. Let's start right from the expression that is the subject of the question, "figurati" (=no problem, you're welcome), which is the informal version (tu), or "Si figuri", which is, on the contrary, the formal version (Lei). So, you'll say "Figurati!" to a friend, to a person that you don't know, in order to be nice and polite, you'll say "Si figuri!". This is a good way of responding to "grazie" and I have to say that, together with "prego", it's a very italian expression. Next to "si figuri", which is the formal version (Lei), we also find "Si immagini!" (=no problem, you're welcome). This is an expression that isn't much used in day-to-day conversation, and is, in any case, used with the polite form (Lei). Let's see some ways of responding to "grazie" that are much more transparent, in terms of meaning, because they are much easier to translate. "Si figuri", "figurati", yes, can be translated as "you're welcome" and other expressions in other languages, but it actually is not a direct translation, it simply is the translation of the linguistic function. "Di niente" and "di nulla" (=you're welcome, no problem), these two expressions are practically the same thing, because "nulla" and "niente" are synonymous, so we have "di nulla", "di niente". There is another very interesting expression, which is "Non c'è di che". This is another way of responding to "grazie" and an expression that I like a lot. "Non c'è di che" is the abbreviation of a possible "Non c'è di che ringraziare", which means "you don't have to thank me". We could easily translate it with "don't mention it". Let's repeat all of these expressions together. I'm editing the video and I realised that I have to add a piece of information. I actually often find myself responding with "grazie a te" or just "a te", or, in the case of the polite form (Lei), "grazie a Lei" or just "a Lei", so we have "grazie a te", "a te", "grazie a Lei", "a Lei". This is another very common way of responding to "grazie". What is the most common way of responding to "thank you" in your language? Let me know in the comments down here. Also let me know which answer you prefer, from all the expressions that I've shown you in this video. I thank you very much for watching this video and we'll see each other in the next one. See you soon, ciao!

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