pronunciationguide.info

Italian

[diacritics] | [vowels] | [vowel combinations] | [consonants] | [stress] | [elision] | [exception] | [bottom]

Grasping the finer details of Italian pronunciation can be tricky, but pronouncing it well enough for radio purposes is a piece of cake. Most sounds are very similar to Spanish, with some notable exceptions.

Diacritics

Italian uses accent marks sparingly, of the same varieties that are used in French (acute: é, grave: è, and circumflex: ê), but unlike in French, here they do indicate stress.

Vowels

aah
eay, as in "say", or sometimes the shorter form eh
iee
ooh, or sometimes the shorter form aw
uoo, as in "root"

Vowel Combinations

In theory Italian vowels are always meant to be pronounced separately, but in practice, unless one vowel has an accent mark, the rapidity of Italian speech tends to reduce such combinations to diphthongs and glides, similar to those in Spanish.

ai, aeiy, like the word "eye"; exception: Aida = ah-ee-dah [audio sample]
ao, auow
eiay, as in "say"
oioy
ia, ie, io, iuya, yay, yo, yoo (usually; occasionally the i is stressed instead, so that the two sounds are pronounced separately, e.g. Maria = mah-ree-yah. Caution: see the note below about ci and gi!)
oa, ua, uowah, wah, wo

Caution: when i follows the letters g or c, it usually does not behave as a vowel, but instead acts to soften the preceding consonant (see ci [+a,o,u] and gi [+a,o,u] below).

Consonants

The most important rules to take note of are those pertaining to the softening of c and g: this determines much of what is distinctive about the sound of Italian. Also, one often sees doubled consonants, and they are doubled for a reason: if you listen to Italians speaking, you'll find they seem to "dwell" on these consonants a bit more than others (e.g. the word "tutti" takes longer to say than if it were spelled "tuti"). But this is a nuance that's difficult for non-Italians to recreate, and is probably better ignored by the novice.

c [+a,o,u]k
c [+e,i]ch, as in "church"
ci [+a,o,u]ch, as in "church", e.g. Luciano = loo-chah-noh
ch, cchk, always (e.g. scherzo = skehr-tsoh, Gianni Schicchi = jahn-nee skee-kee [audio sample]); do NOT confuse with German sch
çts; used only in Medieval Italian
g [+a,o,u]g, hard as in "go"
g [+e,i]j, as in "jello"
gi [+a,o,u]j, as in "jello", e.g. Giovanni = jo-vahn-nee, Giulini = joo-lee-nee
ghg, always hard, e.g. Respighi = rehs-pee-gee, NOT rehs-pee-jee
gll, e.g. gli = lee (definite article), Pagliacci = pahl-lyah-chee
gnny, like Spanish ñ , e.g. Bologna = bo-loh-nya, Mascagni = mah-skahn-yee [audio sample]
lll, perfectly normal though a bit elongated (NOT like Spanish!)
qukw, just like English
rr: trilled
sz, when it falls between vowels (e.g. Busoni = boo-zoh-nee) or before a voiced consonant (e.g. Quel sguardo sdegnosetto = kwel zgwar-do zden-yo-zet-to [audio sample]); otherwise s (e.g. Scarlatti = skar-laht-tee)
sss
zts, at beginnings of words (e.g. ziti = tsee-tee); otherwise usually dz but sometimes ts, pick whichever seems appropriate
zzts or dz, again, pick whichever seems appropriate

Stress

About 75% of the time, stress falls on the next-to-last syllable. These are exceptions:

There are lots of other exceptions, but no sure way to recognize them.

Elision

Contractions are signified by apostrophes, as in English. If you see an apostrophe, pretend it isn't there and pronounce every letter you see accordingly: often this means letters from neighboring words end up in the same syllable, e.g. Ch'io mi scordi di te = kyo mee skor-dee dee tay [audio sample].

Exception

The word adagio is Italian, so in theory it should be pronounced ah-dah-joh. In practice though, it's much more common and accepted for English speakers to say ah-dah-zhee-oh.

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