Beginner's Question

I'm trying to understand the proper pronunciation of Italian words. Words that have various combinations of ci, ce, cia, cio, etc are a bit challenging for me. Take the following example: arancia (orange); common pronunciation has it as ah-rahn-chah or very close to that. OK, but then take the word farmacia (pharmacy). Same "cia" ending, but the pronunciation would be fahr-mah-chee-ah and not fahr-mah-chah. Nor have I heard anyone pronounce orange as ah-rahn-chee-ah. Why the difference in how "cia" is pronounced? Any guidelines to go by, or just listen to how the words are supposed to be spoken and go by that? Thank in advance for the help with this!!

Ciao JS 3 Penso di che if the 'c' is preceeded by a consonant, as in arancia, it is pronounced cha, and if it is preceeded by a vowel as in farmacia it is pronounced stressing the 'i' chee a. I hope this helps. Maria will let us know if I am wrong buona fortuna

Ciao a tutti! in Italian the letter "c" can be pronunced either soft or hard. -c followed by o,a,u = pronunced as hard c = example cane (In English KOH,KA,KOO sound)  -c followed by consonants other than c =pronounced as hard c = example cristiano -c followed by i,e = pronounced soft c = example cena (English CH sound) -c followed by h = pronounced hard c = example chiesa -c followed by i and additional vowel = pronounced soft c, silent i = CIO example ghiaccio (cio sounds like CHOH) = CIA example ciambella (cia sound like CHA) = CIU example ciiucco (ciu sound like CHOO) I hope this helps :) Ciao