Dare del tu e del lei in italiano

What does “dare del Lei” mean in Italian?

Dare del Lei means to address someone formally; its opposite, dare del tu, means to speak to them casually. The strange part for learners: to be polite, Italian switches you into the third person. Instead of come stai? (“how are you?”) you say come sta? — literally “how is he/she?” — even when talking straight to the person in front of you. Lei takes she/he verb endings regardless of the listener’s gender.

Lei (capitalized in writing) descends from old honorifics like Vostra Signoria, “Your Lordship,” which is why it grammatically behaves as a feminine third-person pronoun for everyone. You use Lei with strangers, officials, and elders, pairing it with signor / signora + surname. Moving from Lei to tu is a real social moment, often asked for outright: Possiamo darci del tu?