Caio or salve? What is more appropriate?

I guess my real question is...Is "salve" too formal of a greeting?

Ciao is either hello or goodbye. Sometimes you can just say sera if it is in the evening or night. The important thing is to make some sort of acknowledgement. The Italians will return the greeting.

Buon viaggio,

RB

Ray,

From what I've gathered so far in my Italian language studies, "Salve" can be informal or formal. Whether to use that greeting seems to vary to some extent by what part of Italy one is in. It seems to be used in some areas more than others.

Have a look at This site for one view on the subject.

Cheers!

We were just talking about this in my Italian class. The general rule in Italy is that it's better to be too formal than too familiar. (This concept is sometimes taught to English speakers as formal versus familiar instead of "informal", to help us understand the distinction.)

Ciao is as familiar as you can get and should never be used with people you don't know. (And, as mentioned, it can mean hello or good-bye.)

Salve is more formal than ciao and is fine for pretty much all occasions to greet someone. It's not too formal at all unless you're talking to a really close friend. (And unlike bg/bs it can be used any time of day.)

Use arrivederci for goodbye.

That said, most Italians don't expect tourists to understand the formal v. familiar distinctions of their language and they will tolerate "Ciao" without correcting you. However, a former instructor of mine told me to avoid it because (1) there's no need to say it since there is "salve" as an alternative and (2) each time you say it, you are insulting the recipient a little bit.

So use "salve" but don't sweat it if a "ciao" slips out.

(One friend of mine compares "Ciao" to "Hey" as a greeting, depending on what part of the US you come from.)

Grazie! Thank you for your help.

I think unless you know someone, you say salve as a greeting, instead of ciao, and arrivaderci when leaving. This is how check out clerks in the food store for instance greet you, people in shops, pharmacies, etc. (if they don't use buongiorno or buonasera). I have a bad habit if saying ciao and I know I make Italians cringe with it - it just isn't used unless someone is a friend. This may be a little different depending on where you are but here in Florence "Florentines" can be pretty formal.

Buon Giorno is probably your best option. I wouldn't say Ciao unless I knew someone.

I'm not sure I can think of a perfect analogy. Maybe if you're in a store and the clerk comes up and says "hey dude." You're probably not going to go off on the clerk but you'll be thinking to yourself how inappropriate it was.

I agree with the above, except you are forgiven the familiar, if the person/shop owner/waiter/etc. were to say Ciao on parting, you are perfectly fine to respond in kind. In fact it may be more polite to respond in kind than to revert to a more formal greeting or parting.

On greeting, it's my experience that buon giorno/buona sera is much more common than Salve.

I also feel that a simple "Hello" either used as a greeting or in combination with buon giorno works as well, it really is an international greeting and cues the person that while you are trying to use Italian, you are an English speaker.