PRONUNCIATION- La pronuncia

Pronunciation is very regular in Italian, so you only need to know a few rules and you’ll be able to pronounce words correctly.

C

We can start with the letter C: whenever C is followed by the vowels A, O, U we read it as CA, CO, CU, as in the words: CASA (house), CORTO (short) and CURA (cure).

But whenever the letter C is followed by E or I, we read it “C”, as in the English word “chair”; so for example: CINEMA (cinema), BACI (kisses), CENTRO (centre), CARCERE (prison).

G

The same thing happens with the letter G: followed by, A, O, U it becomes GA, GO, GU as in GATTO (cat), GONNA (skirt) and AUGURI (wishes).

When followed by E or I we read it as in the English words “joy” or “page”, so for example: GIORNO (day), GELATO (ice cream), GITA (trip), MANGIARE (to eat).

H

In Italian we never pronounce the letter H, so for example HO (which means I have) is pronounced /o/ with no aspiration. We don’t pronounce the H even in English words that are commonly used in Italian, such as HOTEL.

CHI/CHE   GHI/GHE

The letter H can frequently be found in words with: CHI, CHE or GHI GHE. So, by putting an H between C/G and E/I, the sound changes to K and G (as in the word “give”).

For example: CHIAVI (keys), CHIEDERE (to ask), PERCHÉ (why).

A tip to remember this rule easily: whenever you see CH, just think of it as a K, so in terms of sound CH=K.

Every time you see GH, just think of it as the G in the word “give”.

SCI/SCE

SCI and SCE are pronounced as in the English words “shivers” and “shame”. For example  SCIOPERO (strike), CUSCINO (pillow), PESCE (fish), CRESCERE (to grow).

GN

We can find GN in words like RAGNO (spider), SOGNO (dream), GIUGNO (June) and it’s always pronounced as the sound ñ in Spanish, as in the word niña.

GLI

Many words in Italian contain the sounds GLI, GLIE, GLIO, GLIA, GLIU, which is typical of Italian and need some practice to be pronounced by non native speakers.

We can find it in the words LUGLIO (July), MAGLIONE (jumper), TAGLIARE (to cut), MIGLIORE (best), and many others.

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