01 Pronuniciation 1

The sounds of Italian

Italian spelling reflects the sounds of the language on a more regular basis than English spelling does. This helps the foreign learner of Italian. There are some cases where the spelling conventions of Italian conflict with those of English. It's these we concentrate on first. Let's start with words of two consecutive vowels. In English, for instance, we talk about the euro /ˈjʊroʊ/, in Italian, both the 'e' and 'u' are pronounced.

un euro

Not try saying itself, with two vowels: un euro   un euro

Here are some more words with two vowels next to each other. Repeat them after the speaker.

paura   buono   paese   aereo   lui   lei

This is not applied to the letter 'i' after a 'c', 'g' or 'sc'. Here are some examples. Again, repeat after the speaker.

ciabatta   giorno   sciarpa