Tap a sentence to see it in Spanish, and tap the book to study it. The speaker plays one sentence, the round button plays a paragraph, and the player at the bottom reads the whole story. Press T to show or hide every translation.
Ciao is only four letters . It is a short , friendly word . Italians say it to friends , to family and to children . It means " hello " , and it also means " goodbye " . This friendly word has a strange story . Venice is a city in the north of Italy . Long ago , people there said " s - ciào vostro " . These words mean " I am your slave " . The first word means " slave " . The second word means " your " . The first word comes from a Latin word of the Middle Ages . The phrase was a polite way to show respect . Over time , people made the phrase shorter . They dropped " vostro " and kept the first word . That word changed a little too . At first , people used the word mainly in the north of Italy . Later , the word travelled to the rest of the country . This happened mostly in the 1900s . Experts can not give one exact year . Around 1929 , English took the word too . Many other languages took it as well . Ciao is still only four letters , and it is still friendly . Once it meant " I am your slave " . 
