Good Night in Italian: Buonanotte & Sogni d’Oro (Audio)

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Lesson illustration for Good Night in Italian: Buonanotte & Sogni d’Oro (Audio)

Italian › Phrases › Good night

Updated August 2026 · Everyday Italian · 6-minute read · 🔊 every phrase has native audio

The quick answer: good night in Italian is buonanotte (bwoh-nah-NOT-teh) — one word, and only at the very end of the day, when people are heading to bed. For sweet dreams, add sogni d’oro (SOH-nyee DOH-roh), literally “golden dreams”. Hear every bedtime phrase below. 👇

Buonanotte
bwoh-nah-NOT-teh · good night — tap to hear it spoken

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Buonanotte is not the Italian word for evening. It is the Italian word for the end. It closes the day, the way turning off a lamp closes a room — which is why Italians will happily say it at eleven at night and never at seven, no matter how dark it is outside.

Learn it with the two phrases that almost always follow it, and you have the whole Italian bedtime.

Every way to say good night in Italian

Italian Say it like Means Use it when… Listen
Buonanotte bwoh-nah-NOT-teh good night the standard — as you part for the night
Buona notte bwoh-nah-NOT-teh good night (two words) identical out loud; the older written form
Notte! NOT-teh night! the clipped, affectionate short version between friends
Buonanotte a tutti bwoh-nah-NOT-teh ah TOOT-tee good night, everyone leaving a room still full of family
Buona nottata BWOH-nah noht-TAH-tah have a good night to someone whose night is only starting — a night shift
Buon riposo bwohn ree-POH-zoh rest well gentle and a little formal — lovely to an older person
Ti auguro una buona notte tee OW-goo-roh OO-nah BWOH-nah NOT-teh I wish you a good night warm and old-fashioned, mostly in writing
Buonanotte, amore bwoh-nah-NOT-teh ah-MOH-reh good night, my love to a husband, a wife, a sweetheart
Buonanotte, tesoro bwoh-nah-NOT-teh teh-ZOH-roh good night, treasure to a child or a grandchild — the classic nonna line
💡 Pronunciation tip: the double T in buonanotte is doing real work. Hold it — bwoh-nah-NOT-teh, with a tiny stop before the last syllable, the way you would in “hot tea”. Let it collapse into “NO-teh” and you have said note, which means notes. Italians will still understand you, and they will also hear it instantly.

Sweet dreams and the rest of bedtime

Italian rarely lets a good night stand alone. One wish leads to another, and the doorway conversation stretches on for another five minutes.

Italian Say it like Means Use it when… Listen
Sogni d’oro SOH-nyee DOH-roh golden dreams = sweet dreams the natural follow-on to buonanotte
Fai bei sogni fye bay SOH-nyee have beautiful dreams tucking a child in
Dormi bene DOR-mee BEH-neh sleep well informal — family and friends
Dorma bene DOR-mah BEH-neh sleep well (formal) to a house guest you address as Lei
Buon sonno bwohn SON-noh good sleep cozy and a bit playful
Riposati ree-POH-zah-tee get some rest to someone who looks worn out
A nanna! ah NAHN-nah off to bed! nursery talk — what Italian parents say to little ones
Vado a letto VAH-doh ah LET-toh I am going to bed announcing your exit from the kitchen
È ora di andare a letto eh OH-rah dee ahn-DAH-reh ah LET-toh it is time to go to bed the parent line, in every language
A domani ah doh-MAH-nee see you tomorrow the natural partner to buonanotte
Stanotte stah-NOT-teh tonight (the sleeping hours) “tonight” when you mean after bedtime
Mezzanotte med-dzah-NOT-teh midnight the hour the clock calls night — people may still be up
💡 Sogni d’oro is the one to learn. It means “golden dreams”, and it is what an Italian says instead of “sweet dreams” — to children, to a partner, to a friend on the phone. Say it right after buonanotte and it sounds completely natural: Buonanotte, sogni d’oro.

Buonanotte or buona notte: one word or two?

Both are correct, and they sound exactly the same. Modern Italian writes the greeting as one word, buonanotte, the same way it writes buongiorno and buonasera. The two-word spelling is older, and it is still the right one when the words are doing their literal jobs in a sentence: ti auguro una buona notte, “I wish you a good night”.

If you are texting a cousin in Italy, use one word. If you are writing a card, either will look fine and nobody will correct you.

The one mistake to avoid: buonanotte is not an arrival

Here is the trap that catches almost every English speaker, because “good night” in English does double duty. In Italian it does not.

Walking into a room at ten at night, you say buonasera. Walking out of that same room at midnight, you say buonanotte. The word has nothing to do with how dark it is and everything to do with whether the day is finished. Say buonanotte as you arrive and you have effectively opened the door and announced that you are going to bed.

The switch also has a smell to it: buonanotte belongs to the moment after the plates are cleared, when somebody stands up and stretches. If you want the arrival half of the evening, we cover it in good evening in Italian, and the wider family of Italian farewells lives in goodbye in Italian.

🇮🇹 The ninna nanna: the Italian word for a lullaby is ninna nanna (NEEN-nah NAHN-nah) — not a description of a song but the crooning itself, the two soft syllables you make over a cradle. It comes from ninnare, to lull a child to sleep, and it gives us fare la nanna, the nursery verb for going to sleep, which is why an Italian parent says a nanna! and not a letto! to a three-year-old. Plenty of the old ones are startling to modern ears, full of wolves and the uomo nero — the bogeyman who comes for children who will not sleep. Every region kept its own tune, and if your family sang one at bedtime, it very likely came from one particular corner of Italy rather than from Italy at large.

What bedtime actually looked like

Italian nights start late. Dinner lands at eight or nine, the table talk runs long, and children are simply part of it — awake, at the table, in the middle of the noise, in a way that startles American visitors. Nobody is sent upstairs so the adults can have their evening. The evening includes them.

So buonanotte arrives late, and it arrives in stages. There is the first one, in the kitchen, which nobody believes. There is the wash-up, the last small argument about tomorrow, the television turned down. Somebody checks the door. And then the real one, at the bottom of the stairs, usually with a hand on a shoulder.

Grandparents added a piece that has largely disappeared: a thumb tracing a small cross on a child’s forehead, done quickly and without ceremony, on the way out of the room. If yours did that, they were doing what their mother did to them — a blessing so ordinary it barely counted as one, handed down the same way a recipe was.

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Practice: quick check

1. You are leaving your cousin’s house in Bari at midnight…
Buonanotte! A domani. — good night, and see you tomorrow. That pair is how Italian doors actually close.
2. You are tucking a grandchild in…
Buonanotte, tesoro. Sogni d’oro. — or the softer nursery version, fai bei sogni .
3. A friend texts at eleven to say they are exhausted…
Riposati! Dormi bene. — get some rest, sleep well. To someone you address formally it becomes dorma bene .
Buonanotte — every phrase with its pronunciation, from My Everyday Language
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Frequently asked questions

What do Italians say before bed?
Buonanotte, almost always followed by a second wish: sogni d’oro (golden dreams), dormi bene (sleep well) or buon riposo (rest well). To a child it is usually buonanotte, tesoro and fai bei sogni. Between people who will see each other in the morning, a domani gets added on the end.
Is it buona notte or buonasera?
They belong to different moments. Buonasera is a greeting you use when you arrive, from the late afternoon onward. Buonanotte is a farewell you use when you leave for the night, or when someone is going to bed. Arriving at a dinner party at ten o’clock you say buonasera; leaving that same party at one in the morning you say buonanotte.
How do Italians say “have a good night”?
Buona nottata (BWOH-nah noht-TAH-tah) is the closest match — it wishes someone a good stretch of night, so it fits people whose night is only beginning, like a nurse or a baker starting a shift. For an ordinary goodbye at bedtime, Italians simply say buonanotte, and if they want to add the warmth of “have a good one” they use buon riposo.
Is buonanotte one word or two?
Modern Italian writes the greeting as one word: buonanotte, exactly like buongiorno and buonasera. The two-word spelling, buona notte, is the older form and is still correct inside a sentence where the words work separately, as in ti auguro una buona notte. They are pronounced identically, and nobody will correct you either way.
What does sogni d’oro mean?
Literally “golden dreams” — it is the Italian version of “sweet dreams”. It is said right after buonanotte, most often to children and to people you love, and it is one of those phrases that sounds far more beautiful than its English equivalent. The gn is soft, like the ny in “canyon”: SOH-nyee DOH-roh.
Can you say buonanotte when you arrive somewhere?
No — and this is the mistake English speakers make most, because “good night” works both ways in English. In Italian, buonanotte only closes things. Say it on the way in and you have announced that you are off to bed. Use buonasera to arrive, however late it is.

Keep going

PhrasesGood Evening in ItalianBuonasera & when to switchPhrasesGoodbye in ItalianAll 15 farewells, with audioPhrasesI Love You in ItalianTi amo or ti voglio bene?
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