{"id":18136,"date":"2019-05-02T21:30:24","date_gmt":"2019-05-02T19:30:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/italian\/?p=18136"},"modified":"2019-05-02T21:30:24","modified_gmt":"2019-05-02T19:30:24","slug":"is-english-difficult-for-italians","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/italian\/is-english-difficult-for-italians\/","title":{"rendered":"Is English Difficult for Italians?"},"content":{"rendered":"

“Italian is sooo complicated!” you say? So does that mean that English is easy for Italians? ASSOLUTAMENTE NO!<\/span><\/p>\n

Let’s find out why …<\/p>\n

The Italian language is very phonetic, and we learn from an early age how these simple rules of spelling work. Once you’ve learned them you have a pretty good idea how to pronounce any word, although accents may vary. English rules of pronunciation, on the other hand, are very abstract for us, and we pretty much have to learn the language word by word!!!<\/p>\n

Take the word ‘awkward<\/em>‘, for example. This is a word that didn’t make any sense to me when I first read it. I remember encountering it in a novel and asking Geoff: “What does owquard<\/em> mean?”
\nA puzzled Geoff took a look at the word and pronounced it for me: “awkward”.
\nCosa?!?<\/strong>
\nIn order to pronounce ‘awkward<\/em>‘ correctly following Italian spelling rules it should be written something like ‘ouqud<\/em>‘, although there isn’t an exact equivalent for that initial ‘aw<\/em>‘.<\/p>\n

But nothing can beat that horrible group of words containing ‘-ough<\/em>‘. Can someone please explain why ‘tough<\/em>‘ is pronounced ‘tuf<\/em>‘, and ‘though<\/em>‘ is pronounced ‘tho<\/em>‘ when there’s only one letter difference between the two words? How can the sound change completely? Ed ecco un’altra di quelle maledette parole<\/strong>: ‘plough<\/em>‘. Geoff fondly remembers the day he took me out for an autumn drive. As we passed through the countryside I pointed at a field and said: “Look, that field has been pluffed<\/em>“. Of course, I’d read the word ‘ploughed<\/em>‘ and interpreted it as ‘pluffed<\/em>‘, as in ‘enough<\/em>‘ or ‘rough<\/em>‘. Geoff loved the image of a huge pair of hands reaching down and pluffing<\/em> up the field as one might do to a pillow!<\/p>\n

Then there are all those words which are spelt exactly the same as each other but pronounced differently (homographs), such as tear<\/em> (lacrima<\/strong>), which sounds like ‘tia<\/em>‘, and tear<\/em> (strappare<\/strong>) which sounds like ‘tair<\/em>‘, or wind (vento<\/strong>) and wind (serpeggiare<\/strong>, avvolgere<\/strong>). If you asked me to write ‘wind<\/em>‘ (as in wind<\/em> up a clock) following Italian rules, I’d spell it ‘uaind<\/em>‘.<\/p>\n

And just to make things really complicated for our poor Italian brains there are those words which are written differently, but pronounced the same (homophones), e.g. ‘brake<\/em>‘ (frenare<\/strong>) and ‘break<\/em>‘ (rompere<\/strong>), or ‘bare<\/em>‘ (nudo<\/strong>) and ‘bear<\/em>‘ (orso<\/strong>).<\/p>\n

This brings us to our next big problem: Pronunciation<\/p>\n

In English there are several sounds which don’t exist in Italian and our tongue refuses to get around them. The English sound most hated by us Italians has to be ‘th<\/em>‘. It just doesn’t want to come out. What we tend to do is make all kinds of contorted lip\/tooth configurations, ending up with a mishmash of something between a ‘t<\/em>‘ and an ‘f<\/em>‘. Personally, the word I hate most is ‘throat<\/em>‘ (gola<\/strong>). The combination of ‘th<\/em>‘ followed by the letter ‘r<\/em>‘ is horrendous, and for some reason I usually end up with something resembling ‘troath<\/em>‘. Oddio!<\/strong><\/p>\n

Another confusion is the letter ‘h<\/em>‘. In Italian l’acca \u00e8 muta<\/strong> (the h is silent), which is why you often hear Italians saying ‘ome<\/em>‘ instead of ‘h<\/em>ome<\/em>‘, or ‘oliday<\/em>‘ instead of ‘h<\/em>oliday<\/em>‘, and so on.<\/p>\n

Italian vowel sounds have less variation than English vowel sounds, and if we combine them with the Italian silent ‘h’ then things get really complicated. How does one distinguish ‘angry<\/em>‘ from ‘hungry<\/em>‘? This is a big riddle for Italians, and they often seem to tell you that they’re ‘very angry<\/em>‘ when in fact they’re just ‘very hungry<\/em>‘ (quite normal for us … now, where’s the nearest pizzeria?).
\nAnd what is the difference between ‘warm<\/em>‘ (caldo<\/strong>) and ‘worm<\/em>‘ (verme<\/strong>)? In Italian, we pronounce ‘o<\/em>‘ as in ‘octet<\/em>‘, so ‘worm<\/em>‘ should really be ‘warm<\/em>‘ …\u00a0 or is the worm warm? … aiuto!!!<\/strong><\/p>\n

Due to the lack of differentiation between long and short vowels, we can easily end up in deep ‘sheet<\/em>‘. That double ‘e<\/em>‘ can seem like an ‘i<\/em>‘ (as in Italy) to us. So if, for example, we’re at an ‘otel<\/em>‘ and we find that our bed has a dirty ‘sheet<\/em>‘ on it … well, this video explains all: WARNING: don’t watch if you’re offended by parolacce<\/strong> (swear words)<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n