Easy Italian

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1. Pronunciation

The italian alphabet is:

A (a), B (bi), C (ci), D (di), E (e), F (effe), G (gi), H (acca), I (i), L (elle), M (emme), N (enne), O (o), P (pi), Q (cu), R (erre), S (esse), T (ti), U (u), V (vu), Z (zeta).

Nevertheless you can find in foreign or old words the letters J (i lungo), K (kappa), W (doppia vu), X (ikse) and Y (ipsilon). Ex: Juventus, Tokio, week end, taxi, yogurt…

The basic rule to italian pronunciation: all the letters must be pronounced.

Vowels:

A: as in English but; much closer to French and Spanish A in papa.

E: can be open or closed (French é and è). Basically, close to English get.

I: as in English bill.

O: can be open or closed (Catalan ó and ò). Basically, close to English born.

U: as in English full.

Consonants:

B, D, F, L, M, N, P, T, V are more or less pronounced as in English.

C has the hard sound of K (as in kill) in the following syllables: CA, CHE, CHI, CO, CU

C has the soft sound of CH (as in choose) in the following syllables: CIA, CE, CI, CIO, CIU

G has the hard sound of G (as in get) in the following syllables: GA, GHE, GHI, GO, GU

G has the soft sound of J (as in John) in the following syllables: GIA, GE, GI, GIO, GIU

SC has the hard sound of SK (as in skill) in the following syllables: SCA, SCHE, SCHI, SCO, SCU

SC has the soft sound of SH (as in shell) in the following syllables: SCIA, SCE, SCI, SCIO, SCIU

H is not pronounced

GLI: between English million and French quille. Close to Spanish pollo. It keeps the pronunciation [GLI] in some words such as glicerina, negligere…

GN: English canyon, French agneau, Spanish España, Occitan and Portuguese Espanha.

GU is always pronounced [GW]; it never keeps the hard sound of [G]

QU is always pronounced [KW]; it never keeps the hard sound of [K]

R: rolled like in Spanish or Scottish. RR is rolled even stronger.

S: can be hard as in person or soft as in rose. It has thus 2 sounds: [SS] and [Z] more or less in the same situations as in English.

Z: sounds like [TS] or [DZ].

Double consonants:

Unlike French the double consonants must be pronounced clearly: nonno ("grandfather", to be pronounced [non-no]) is different from nono ("ninth", pronounced [nono]).

Tonic stress:

As in Spanish every Italian has a stressed vowel. Unfortunately the spelling doesn't indicate where is this stress, except when it falls on the last syllable: a grave accent is then put on the stressed vowel.

Examples (stressed vowel is highlighted in red)

Indicamelo (indicate it to me); subito (right now); quaderno (notebook); città (city).

It's no use saying that the tonic stress is an essential feature of Italian. Parlo (I speak) and parlò (he spoke), or ancora (anchor) and ancora (again), are only differentiated by their tonic stress…

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