If you want to express a desire for someone’s well-being in Italian, you can use the phrase Ti auguro ogni bene which means I wish you well or I wish you the best.
Let’s break this phrase down into bitesized chunks!
ti
An indirect object pronoun in Italian that can translate as either you or to you. Because it is familiar, it should only be used with individuals you know well. Otherwise, you should use the pronouns Le (when addressing someone formally) or vi (when addressing a group of people).
>> Le auguro ogni bene = I wish you (formal) well
>> Vi auguro ogni bene = I wish (all of) you well
auguro
The first-person present conjugation of augurare (to wish). It means I wish. As is often the case in Italian, the subject pronoun io (I) can be omitted.
ogni
The word for every or each in Italian.
bene
In this case, bene is a noun that means good (thing), advantage or well-being in Italian.
This means that literally the phrase translates as I wish you every good.
If you want to mention someone else besides ti in your greeting, it becomes necessary to slightly adjust the sentence structure. Consider the following examples:
Auguro ogni bene a te e famiglia.
I wish you and your family well.
Auguro ogni bene a te e Laura.
I wish you and Laura well.
As you can see, ti (an unstressed object pronoun) has become a te (a stressed object pronoun) and it comes after auguro ogni bene.
By the way, there is also a literal translation for I wish you the best: ti auguro il meglio.
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Heather Broster is a graduate with honours in linguistics from the University of Western Ontario. She is an aspiring polyglot, proficient in English and Italian, as well as Japanese, Welsh, and French to varying degrees of fluency. Originally from Toronto, Heather has resided in various countries, notably Italy for a period of six years. Her primary focus lies in the fields of language acquisition, education, and bilingual instruction.
