From a philosophical point of view you can say that reflexive pronouns are just object pronouns. They indicate that the agent of the action and the goal of this action are the same person. In English the object pronouns are different from the reflexive pronouns (me <=> myself, him <=> himself, us <=> ourselves and so on) but in the overwhelming majority of languages that's not the case, most of the languages distinguish between object pronouns and reflexive pronouns only in the third person because only in the third person this is really necessary.
~I wash me.
I wash myself.
=> "I wash me" is wrong, but there is no difference in meaning.
I wash him.
I wash myself.
=> In the third person there is a big difference in meaning, therefore in any language there is a special form for the reflexive pronoun in the third person.
Italian belongs to this majority of languages. Only in the third person singular and plural there is a difference between the object pronoun and the reflexive pronoun because only in this case this is really needed. On the other side it is sometimes very useful to see that a reflexive pronoun can be a direct and an indirect object.
directe object Mi sono lavato. => Chi ho lavato?Mi
=> (I washed myself. => Who did I wash? myself.)
indirect object Mi sono comprato una macchina. => A chi ho comprato una macchina? A mi.
=> (I bought a car for myself. => For whom did I buy a car. => For myself.)
Pay attention to the fact, that Mi sono comprato una macchina doesn't mean I bought a car myself (possibly for someone else) but I bought a car for myself.
I bought a car myself would be Ho comprato una macchina io stesso.
We can distinguish three different uses of the reflexive pronoun.
1) A reflexive pronoun is used to stress that the action has been realised by the subject himself
myself = Io stesso (I bought a car myself => Ho comprato una macchina iostesso)
yourself = Tu stesso (You bought a car yourself => Hai comprato una macchina tustesso)
herself = Lei stessa (She bought a car herself => Ha comprato una macchina leistessa)
himself = Lui stesso (He bought a car himself => Ha comprato una macchina luistesso)
ourselves masc. = Noi stessi (We bought a car ourselves => Abbiamo comprato una macchina noistessi)
ourselves fem. = Noi stesse (We bought a car ourselves => Abbiamo comprato una macchina noistesse)
yourselves masc. = Voi stessi (You bought a car yourselves => Avete comprato una macchina voistessi)
yourselves fem. = Voi stesse (You bought a car yourselves => Avete comprato una macchina voistesse)
themselves masc.= Loro stessi (They bought a car themselves => Hanno comprato una macchina lorostessi)
themselves fem.= Loro stesse (They bought a car themselves => Hanno comprato una macchina lorostesse)
2) A reflexive pronoun is used as well to describe that the subject of the sentence is the agent as well as the goal of the action described by the verb. (The distinction between We see ourselves and We see us doesn' t exist in Italian. The meaning must be deduced from the context.)
myself = mi ( I see myself => Mi vedo) yourself = ti ( I see you => Ti vedo) herself = si (She sees herself => Si vede) himself = si (She sees himself => Si vede) ourselves = ci (We see ourselves => Ci vediamo) us = ci (We see us => Ci vediamo) yourself = vi (You see yourselves => Vi vedete) themselves = si (They see themselves => Si vedono)
3) A reflexive pronoun is used together with of preposition. In this case special attention is to be given to the preposition required by the verb, a literal translation is not possible in general. In Italian we use NEVER a reflexive pronoun after prepositions. Together with prepositions we use the the prepositional pronouns. It doesn' t work therefore as in English.
for, about etc. myself = per, di etc. me
I did it for myself => Lo ho fatto per me (stesso).
You talked about yourself => Hai parlato di te (stesso).
He talked about himself. => Ha parlato di se stesso.
Only in the case 2 the reflexive pronoun in Italian corresponds to the reflexive pronoun in English. In the other cases a word-for-word translation is not possible.
