Introduction to Italian/Lesson 2
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[edit] The Italian Alphabet
The Italian alphabet is very similar to the English alphabet:
Aa Bb Cc Dd Ee Ff Gg Hh Ii Ll Mm Nn Oo Pp Qq Rr Ss Tt Uu Vv Zz
| Letter | Name | IPA | Letter | Name | IPA |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| A, a | a | /a/ | N, n | enne | /n/ |
| B, b | bi | /b/ | O, o | o | /o/ or /ɔ/ |
| C, c | ci | /k/ or /tʃ/ | P, p | pi | /p/ |
| D, d | di | /d/ | Q, q | cu | /k/ |
| E, e | e | /e/ or /ɛ/ | R, r | erre | /r/ |
| F, f | effe | /f/ | S, s | esse | /s/ or /z/ |
| G, g | gi | /g/ or /dʒ/ | T, t | ti | /t/ |
| H, h | acca | U, u | u | /u/ or /w/ | |
| I, i | i | /i/ or /j/ | V, v | vi or vu | /v/ |
| L, l | elle | /l/ | Z, z | zeta | /dz/ or /ts/ |
| M, m | emme | /m/ |
Notice that it lacks the letters j, k, w, x, and y. These are foreign letters used only in loanwords.
[edit] Vowel Pronunciations
Each vowel has basically one pronunciation. They are as follows:
a - pronounced like the ou in fought or the a in raw, like the sound a dentist might have you make when you open your mouth wide. It is usually pronounced in a relaxed way, but hardens when an accent mark is added (à).
e - pronounced like the e in pest or Edward. When it has an accent (è) it is pronounced like the a in plate or the ei in eight.
i - pronounced like the ee' in feed or the ea in peak.
o - pronounced like the oa in boat or the oe in toe.
u - pronounced like the o in to or who.
[edit] Note on Accented Vowels
In some languages accented letters are counted as their own letters (for instance, in Swedish the letter ä is considered different from the letter a). In Italian, à and è are just variations on a and e. So in a dictionary, the words ‘‘e’’ and ‘‘ è’’ will appear immediately after one another.
[edit] Consonant Pronunciations
Most Italian consonants are pronounced the same as they are in English, but not all:
b - same as in bat.
c - before a consonant or a, o, and u makes a hard sound as in cat. Before an e or i makes a soft sound as in chat; however, ch is hardened before an e or i, so che sounds like kay and chi sounds like key.
d - same as in dog.
f - same as in fake.
g - same rules apply as c; hard sound is the same as game, soft sound is the same as Germany. Changes n and l (see those letters for how it changes them).
h - always silent; used to harden c and g. So the word ho is pronounced like oh.
l - same as in lake. When immediately preceded by a g it makes a sound similar to that of the li in million. It is best described as ly where y is a consonant.
m - same as in mom.
n - same as in not. When immediately preceded by a g it makes a sound similar to to that of the ni in minion and the Spanish ñ. It is best described as ny where y is a consonant.
p - same as in post.
q - same as in queen (in Spanish an French (maybe Portuguese?) this can be pronounced like a hard c, but not in Italian).
r - same as in race, but rolled (your tongue should vibrate up and down when you pronounce it).
s - same as in sorry; sometimes pronounced like a z as in zoo.
t - same as in time.
v - same as in violin.
z - sometimes pronounced as a plain z as in zoo, but often sounds like dz or tz (think pizza).
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