Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
A Bite of Italian Pronunciation
Inthefirstchaptersyouaregoingtoseethepronunciationofeachwordandsentence,sothat
you will be able not only to learn the sentences, but also to say them in the correct way. The
Italian language has a very simple pronunciation: they read the words as they write them,
only with a few exceptions. So you just need to have a look of the following table, in which
you can find the symbols that are going to be used further to write the Italian sounds of each
letter.
Note that some vowels have two different pronunciations (closed, for example “ͻ”, and open
for example “o”), but the meaning of the word hardly ever changes, in fact even Italian
people, depending on the region they are from, say the words in both ways, without any mis-
understanding, or change of meaning.
On the other hand, it is important to learn the pronunciation of a few consonants (C, G and
S) that have different sounds depending on the preceding or following letters, because in this
case people will not understand what you are saying.
a
[a]
c
a
t
b
[b]
b
ad
C
c + a / o / u;
ch + e; ch + i
car;
chemistry; kick
c + e; c + i
[tʃe]; [tʃi]
cherry; chip
ci + a; ci + o; ci + u [tʃa]; [tʃo]; [tʃu]
chance; choice; chew
d
[d]
dance
e
[æ]
[
e
]
bag
bed
f
[f]
flower
G
g + a / o / u;
gh + e; gh + i
gun;
game; give
g + e; g + i
[dʒe]; [dʒi]
gentle; ginger
