Italian is a musical language, so you should try to run all the words in a sentence together musically. Italian language is a beautiful idiom to speak and listen, musical, fluid and emotionally expressive. Many Italians consider that your words are not merely tools to express basic messages, also, they sophisticated descriptions of emotional states. Anywhere that you go in Italy you'll hear Italians talking, arguing, complaining, speaking; a vehicle of communication that is strikingly different to the more minimal style of speech in the Anglo-Saxon world. English-speakers are often considered cold or withdrawn by Italians, simply because they say less.

Italians love to speak. Not only do they enjoy communication, but they also love their language, because it’s very melodious. Opera is famous for a reason!

Italian pronunciation might pose some difficulties for the beginner. Yet it is very regular, and once the rules are understood it is easy to pronounce each word correctly.

Tips of Italian pronunciation:

Consonants:

Those letters are pronounced more or less like English include b, d, f, k, l, m, n, p, q, t, and v.

The letter c has two pronunciations: In front of the vowels i and e, the c is pronounced as the ch in cheer. In front of any other vowel (a, u, o), the c is pronounced as the k in cat.

Example:

You will see these combinations in Italian:

cia

cha

che

chi

cio

cho

ciu

chu

The letter ch is always pronounced like k.

Example:

The letter g has two pronunciations in Italian: a soft j sound (as in jello) in front of the vowels i and e (also gg in front of these two vowels), and a hard g sound (as in Gary) everywhere else.

Example:

The letter combination gh is also pronounced as a hard g.

Example:

The letter combination gl is pronounced like the lli in million. Gli = to him, pronounced as lyee. Meglio (pronounced as may-lyoo) = better.

The letter combination gn is pronounced like the ni in onion, minion, union. If you have had French, it is the same sound as the gn in montagne (mountain). Italian campagna (sounds like kam-panya) = country

The letter h (by itself or in combination with other consonants) is always silent. Ha would be pronounced as ah.

The letter s is sometimes pronounced as s, but between two vowels, it has a z sound. The double ss is pronounced as a simple s.

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The letter combination sc has two pronunciations: It is pronounced as sh in front of the vowels i and e. It is pronounced as sk (as in skin) in front of all other vowels.

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The q always occurs with a u, that is, qu. It has a kw sound.

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The z or zz letters are pronounced sometimes as the ts in hits or the dz sound as in roads.

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Vowels:

The letter a has a long pronunciation and a short pronunciation. It is long as in father (ah). It is short as in cat.

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The letter e has a long pronunciation and a short pronunciation. It is long as in Kate, late, mate, bait . It is short as in let, met, bet, set.

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The letter i is pronounced like the ee in meet. In proper Italian, there is also a short i sound (found in front of two or more consonants) that sounds like the i in fit, sit, mitt, kit, lit.

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The letter o has a long and short sound. As a long vowel, it sounds like the o in go, boat, float, mow, hoe. As a short vowel (for example, when found before two consonants), it is pronounced as the o in ought, cot, hot, lot, bought (although many Americans pronounced these as ah instead of a true open o.)

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The u letter is pronounced as the oo sound in moon.

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When two or more vowels are found together, they are pronounced separately as either two strong vowels, two weak vowels, or one strong and one weak.

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Written accents:

Be sure to memorize whether a word has a written accent or not because the presence or absence of an accent can change the meaning of a word in Italian.

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