Index / Language / Records / Italian / Grammar
Who you call what, and which verb person follows. Italian puts the formal pronoun in the third person, which no other language you speak does.
The control text · practical
Buongiorno. Il 12 di questo mese mi è stato addebitato un importo di 89,90 euro che non riconosco. Immagino che si tratti di un errore: ho disdetto quel servizio a maggio e ne ho conservato la ricevuta. Le chiedo di accreditarmi la somma e di confermarmi per iscritto che l'abbonamento è stato chiuso. Se non riceverò riscontro entro venerdì, presenterò un reclamo. Resto in attesa.
Where the two part
Standard · the base
Tu for the familiar, Lei with a third-person singular verb for the formal, capitalised in writing. Voi as a singular formal is archaic in the standard; Loro as a formal plural is very high register and receding.
Regional · the contrast
Voi as a singular formal is alive in the South, where it is ordinary courtesy rather than an archaism. Lei is never wrong there; voi in Milan is.
10 options
Le chiedo di accreditarmi la somma e di confermarmi per iscritto.
The tellA capitalised Le or La, and a verb in the third person singular.
Anchor A is written this way. Correct everywhere in Italy, with anyone, in any written register.
Every agreement in the sentence follows it, so a single slip into tu mid-paragraph is glaring.
le chiedo di accreditarmi la somma
The tellThe same grammar, lower case.
Increasingly common in email and accepted in ordinary correspondence.
In a formal letter or an exam the capital is expected, and its absence reads as carelessness rather than as modernity.
Ti chiedo di accreditarmi la somma e di confermarmi per iscritto.
The tellSecond-person verb endings and lower-case ti.
The default with anyone you know, anyone your age in an informal setting, and increasingly in start-up and tech workplaces.
With an institution or a stranger it is presumptuous, and in this particular letter it would undercut the complaint.
Vi chiedo di accreditarmi la somma.
The tellA plural verb addressed to one person.
Ordinary courtesy in much of the South, and worth recognising so you do not read it as a mistake or as addressing a group.
Outside the South it reads as archaic, regional, or as a company addressing a customer.
Vi chiedo di accreditarmi la somma. — addressed to the company, not to a person
The tellPlural because the addressee is genuinely plural.
The natural choice for Anchor A if you are writing to a company rather than to a named person, and it sidesteps the Lei/tu decision entirely.
It removes the individual, so nobody at the other end feels personally addressed.
Loro vorranno cortesemente accreditarmi la somma.
The tellThird person plural used as an address form.
Correct and very high register, still found in legal and hotel language.
Receding fast. In most contexts it now reads as ceremonious or as parody.
Si chiede l'accredito della somma e la conferma scritta della chiusura.
The tellNo pronoun anywhere; the si construction removes the person.
The genuine escape hatch: correct, formal, and it avoids choosing between Lei, tu and voi altogether.
Cold by construction, and with an individual it reads as evasion rather than as courtesy.
Si richiede che l'importo venga accreditato.
The tellA passive plus a subjunctive, and nobody named on either side.
Maximum distance with no confrontation, and it is the register institutions answer in.
Two removals at once — no addressee and no agent — so the sentence has nobody in it at all.
Le chiedo di accreditarmi la somma. Fammi sapere. — two registers, two sentences
The tellA third-person clitic in one sentence and a second-person imperative in the next.
On the sheet because it is the characteristic real failure, and because it is invisible while you are writing.
An examiner reads it as loss of control rather than as range, which is the harshest reading available.
Continuing with Lei after the other person has said diamoci del tu
The tellFormality sustained after it has been explicitly waived.
Worth naming: in Italy the move to tu is usually proposed out loud, and declining it is a statement.
It reads as coldness or as a rebuke, neither of which you may have meant.