Voi siete davvero carini.

English Translation

You’re really nice.

I’m wondering whether amabili would work here, or is it too much?

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Ehilà @morbrorper I tend to think of carini as cute, nice or pretty, and amabili as lovable and amiable - so perhaps it depends more on the age of the person being complimented.

A dopo…

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I totally agree with Floria7: “carini” = “cute, pretty” and “amabili” = “amiable” (alcoholic beverages can also be “amabile”.

However, “nice” is such a versatile English word that you cannot really translate it without knowing the situation.
Even the Anglo-Saxons don’t agree on its use:
On a science conference an Englishman had a lecture. Afterwards, in question time, an American started his question very friendly with “Mighty nice lecture you gave …” whereas the English - clearly not amused - answered rather stiffly " Thank you for calling my lecture mighty nice …"
A nice :wink: example of a transatlantic misunderstanding.

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I didn’t know of this transatlantic division.
About the original question: I think using “amabile” to translate nice seems a bit of a stretch.

If I had to translate the English sentence to Italian, I would probably use:
“Siete davvero gentili” (or “sei davvero gentile”), interpreting “nice” as “kind”.

“Carino” means cute, but it can be used also to to mean “kind”, for example:

“È stato davvero carino da parte tua invitarmi.” → It was kind of you to invite me.

After all, “carino”, while it is used as an independent word nowadays, comes from “caro”, “dear”.

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Thanks Mike-lima. Out of interest we were always taught to avoid the word “nice” as it was so bland and could also be quite demeaning. MRgK is spot-on. Mind you I would be quite happy with an American “nice” as long as mighty came before it:-)

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Thanks for all the responses! My question was actually motivated by Spanish, where amable can be used to express kindness/niceness: Muy amable (Very kind of you).

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Oh, I see! In this case, I can definitely say that “amabile” is not commonly used in this sense; it is a word that is more often used to describe the taste of a wine than the feeling toward someone.

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Another word popped into my mind: cortese; how about that? Siete davvero cortesi.

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