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Italian is such an easy language to speak. It is phonetic, which means that as long as you memorize the sounds of each letter, you can read ANY word!

You can form almost every sound in Italian using English sounds that you already know. Look at the Italian alphabet below.

Resources for further reading:

• The top ten Italian hacks
• How to learn Italian fast

As you can see, it looks exactly like the English one! However, the letters J, K, W, X and Y are rare in Italian. You’ll find them most commonly used for loanwords - that is, words borrowed from other languages.

You can find a list providing the pronunciation of each letter of the alphabet individually at the end of this lesson. This can be handy to practice with in case you ever need to spell out your name!

For now, let's move on to talking about some very important letters: the ones that sound the most different from English.

Letters With Different Sounds

The following letters are ones you should keep an eye out for as you're starting to learn Italian because they won't necessarily sound the way you expect them to!

C and G

The letters C and G normally have a soft sound in Italian whenever they are followed by the letters E or I.

Try these sounds out now:

When the letters C and G are followed by A, O or U, the sound becomes hard instead.

Try it out for yourself:

SC

When the letter combination SC is followed by the letters A, O or U, the sound is hard, as in the rule above.

Be careful however when SC is followed by the letters E or I. Here, the SC changes to sound like the letters SH in English.

CH and GH

The letter H is silent in Italian, but when it comes after a C or G, it gives these letters a hard sound.

CH sounds like a “K” in English:

GH sounds like the “G” in “game”:

R

The Italian R is a rolling R - you make it by vibrating the tip of your tongue against the top of your mouth. It can take a bit of practice to master - trying to purr like a cat helps! - but once you've got it, you've got it for life.

Listen to the examples and try to repeat them out loud.

If you're having trouble making your rolling R sound, it might help to imagine that your tongue is a flag rippling in a strong breeze. But don't be discouraged if you can't get your Italian Rs down right away! The more Italian you hear and the more you practice, the better you will become.

GLI and GN

Italian has two sounds that are unique and can take some practice to master: GLI and GN.

The GLI sounds a little bit like the “LLI” in the English word “million,” but you can also get away with pronouncing it like a “YEE” sound.

There are a few exceptions to this, but they are quite rare. In these cases, the GLI sound is pronounced as it is spelled.

The GN sound in Italian sounds a little like a “NY” sound in English.

Double Consonants

In Italian, when consonants are doubled, it creates a different sound and can change the meaning of the word entirely.

In general, the sound that double consonants make can be either more forceful or longer, depending on the word.

Here are some examples of sounds that become more FORCEFUL with double consonants.

Here are some examples of sounds that become LONGER with double consonants.

Pronunciation Practice

Now that we've been through the hardest letters and letter combinations, it's time to see if you can pronounce the following words:

A

B

C

D

E

F

G

H

I

J

K

L

M

N

O

P

Q

R

S

T

U

V

W

X

Y

Z

Accent Marks

The next thing you need to learn about pronouncing words in Italian has to do with accents. Italian uses two kinds of accents:

• the grave accent `

• the acute accent ´

They change the way that a word is pronounced.

The grave accent can go on any vowel letter, and it has to go on vowels when they appear as the last letter in a word. The grave accent makes the vowel sound more closed, or end a little more abruptly than if the accent were not present.

The acute accent only goes on the letter E and makes the vowel sound more open, like “ay” in the English word “okay.”

Good work! Now you can move on and have a read of this Culture lesson, where we talk about what Italy is famous for.