In Italian, the equivalent of person is persona, whose plural is persone; there is also another word that could be used instead of persone (gente) but that is not the plural of persona. It cannot be used as simple replacement of persone, as I cannot say ho visto quattro gente for "I saw four people," but I must say ho visto quattro persone.
In my English classes, I was taught that people is the plural of person, and that is the word I should use.
Google Translate, when I ask the translation of persone, it translates it as people, but looking at the alternatives it has (by clicking on the translation), I see:
- Persons
- Person
- Individuals
I find strange it suggests person, but I take Google Translate suggests also the singular of the word for which the translation is asked.
Is persons ever used in normal conversations? Being Italian my first language, I would be use persons as plural of person, but that is not what I was taught.
Is there any case where individuals is preferable to people, or persons? Suppose I want to say "I saw four people"; could I say "I saw four individuals"? Does the last phrase have a particular meaning, for example "four suspects" or "four people that came from different places, and randomly joined"?
:)