A Few Notes on Our Pronunciation Guide

 

Fortunately for newcomers to the Italian language the rules of pronunciation are easy to learn, and there are very few exceptions to them (unlike the case in English!). The rules are laid out in the first section of the Grammar Guru.

 

When explaining the pronunciation of Italian letters and words in the Grammar Guru and in the Vocabulary pages we will use a simple phonetic system or code, converting vino for example to “vee-noh.” Our pronunciation code is “quick and dirty” and misses some of the subtleties of the Italian language--which you will pick up on your own by-and-by--but it will get you off to a good start! Most of the letters in the code, such as b or m, have the same sounds which they normally possess in English, but pay attention to the following:

 

  Code   Sounds Like   Examples  
     
eh e in step or bed This is the sound of the short e in Italian, as in quello (kwehl-loh), "that," and penna (pehn-nah), "pen."
     
ay ay in play or say This is the sound of the long e in Italian, as in treno (tray-noh), "train," and luce (loo-chay), "light."
     
ee ee in see or tree, or i in machine This is the normal sound of i in Italian, as in ricco (reek-koh), "rich," and senti! (sehn-tee), "listen!"
     
oh o in Ohio or solo This is the normal sound of o in Italian, as in lento (lehn-toh), "slow," and moda (moh-dah), "fashion."
     
oo oo in soon or u in tune This the normal sound of u in Italian, as in uno (oo-noh), "one," and gioventù (joh-vehn-too), "youth."
     
ah a in father or ah in Kahn This is the normal sound of a in Italian, as in madre (mah-dray), "mother," and luna (loo-nah), "moon."
     
j j in jump or g in gender This is the sound of the "soft g" in Italian, as in gentile (jehn-tee-lay), "kind," and maggio (mahj-joh), "May."
     
g g in go or game This is the sound of the "hard g" in Italian, as in gatto (gaht-toh), "cat," and prego (pray-goh), "you're welcome."
     
k k in look or c in cat This is the sound of the "hard c" in Italian, as in cavallo (kah-vahl-loh), "horse," and chiesa (kee-ay-zah), "church."
     
ch ch in change or much This is the sound of the "soft c" in Italian, as in faccio (fah-choh), "I make," and città (cheet-tah), "city."
     
s s in sister or send This is the sound of s in Italian when it is at the beginning of a word, is doubled, or is placed in front of a consonant, as in senza (sehn-tsah), "without," posso (pohs-soh), "I can," and questo (kweh-stoh), "this."
     
z z in zero or lazy This is the sound of s in Italian when it appears in a word between two vowels, as in casa (kah-zah), "house," and riso (ree-zoh), "rice."
     
ts ts in fatso, tz in matzoh, or zz in pizza This is the normal sound of z in Italian, as in pezzo (pehts-tsoh), "piece," and zio (tsee-oh), "uncle."
     
sh sh in ship or wish This is the sound made by the combination sc in Italian when it is followed by an e or i, as in pesce (peh-shay), "fish," and sciocco (shohk-koh), "fool."
     
w w in wish or aware This is the sound made by u in Italian when it comes before another vowel, as in uomo (woh-moh), "man," and guarda! (gwahr-dah), "look!"
     
     

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 		 Syllables and Stress:
In the pronunciation guide the individual syllables are separated by a hyphen, and the stressed syllable of a word is shown in boldface: thus macchina (car) becomes mahk-kee-nah, ragazzo (boy) becomes rah-gahts-tsoh, and città (city) becomes cheet-tah. For the rules concerning stress in Italian, see Section I of the Grammar Guru, paragraphs 8-10.
 
 
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