{"id":49,"date":"2008-12-01T15:41:28","date_gmt":"2008-12-01T19:41:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/italian\/?p=49"},"modified":"2015-07-06T12:01:13","modified_gmt":"2015-07-06T10:01:13","slug":"la-pronuncia-part-1","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/italian\/la-pronuncia-part-1\/","title":{"rendered":"La Pronuncia, part 1."},"content":{"rendered":"

Italian, as I\u2019m sure you will have discovered by now, is a \u2018challenging\u2019 and often confusing language, and for every rule there seem to be twenty-five exceptions.<\/span><\/p>\n

The good news however is that one set of rules is<\/span> consistent, and those are the rules governing la pronuncia <\/strong>(pronunciation). Once you have mastered these fixed rules your life as a student of Italian will become much easier.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Firstly the vowels:<\/span><\/p>\n

a <\/span><\/strong>is pronounced like a<\/em> as in a<\/span>pple: e.g. banca<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

e<\/span><\/strong> sounds like e<\/em> in me<\/span>t: e.g. fetta<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

i<\/span><\/strong> is similar to ea<\/em> as in ea<\/span>sy: e.g. vino<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

o<\/span><\/strong> sounds like the o<\/em> in to<\/span>ffee: e.g. opera<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

u<\/span><\/strong> is pronounced oo<\/em> as in coo<\/span>l: e.g. uno<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

So far so good, now for the consonants:<\/span><\/p>\n

C <\/span><\/strong>is one of the consonants that most often confuses English speakers. Take the title of this blog for example, La Pronuncia<\/strong>. In the English word pronunciation<\/em> the ci <\/em>is pronounced like the word sea, in Italian however ci<\/strong> sounds like chee<\/em> as in chee<\/span>se.<\/span><\/p>\n

Likewise c<\/strong> followed by e <\/strong>uses a soft ch<\/em> sound as in ch<\/span>at.<\/span><\/p>\n

So the rule is: c<\/strong> followed by i<\/strong> or e<\/strong> = soft ch <\/em>sound: e.g. ci<\/span>nque<\/strong>, ce<\/span>ntro<\/strong>, ci<\/span>rco<\/strong>, ce<\/span>na<\/strong>.<\/span><\/p>\n

C<\/span><\/strong> followed by a,o,u, <\/strong>or a consonant, on the other hand, makes a hard sound like c <\/em>as in c<\/span>at: e.g. ca<\/span>sa, co<\/span>tto, cl<\/span>assico<\/span>, cu<\/span>cina.<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

It\u2019s easy to see how this can lead to confusion for an English speaker. Take the Italian word China<\/strong> for example. In Italian China<\/strong> is not a country but a popular alcoholic drink and it is pronounced keena<\/em>. The country China<\/em> is in fact written Cina<\/strong> and pronounced cheena<\/em>, and a Chinese person is una persona cinese<\/strong>.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The consonant G<\/strong> follows a similar rule, taking on a soft sound when followed by e<\/strong> or i <\/strong>like the g<\/em> in g<\/span>inger. Some examples of this are Ge<\/span>nova<\/strong>, gi<\/span>raffa <\/strong>and age<\/span>nzia<\/strong>.<\/span><\/p>\n

G<\/span><\/strong> uses a hard sound like g<\/em> in g<\/span>ap when followed by a<\/strong>, o<\/strong> or u<\/strong>, and most consonants: e.g. gr<\/span>azie<\/strong>, albergo<\/span><\/strong>, paga<\/span>re<\/strong>, ga<\/span>mba<\/strong>.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

H<\/span><\/strong>, well this one is easy because it\u2019s silent, we don\u2019t pronounce it! : e.g. hotel<\/strong> pronounced otel<\/em>, hai<\/strong> pronounced ai<\/em>, and so on.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Now I\u2019ll give you a bit of time to digest these rules. Try finding some Italian text and applying what you have learnt to unfamiliar words. More to follow in part two\u2026\u2026\u2026\u2026\u2026\u2026\u2026<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Italian, as I\u2019m sure you will have discovered by now, is a \u2018challenging\u2019 and often confusing language, and for every rule there seem to be twenty-five exceptions. The good news however is that one set of rules is consistent, and those are the rules governing la pronuncia (pronunciation). Once you have mastered these fixed rules…<\/p>\n

Continue Reading<\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"author":19,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"content-type":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[744],"class_list":["post-49","post","type-post","status-publish","hentry","category-grammar","tag-italian-pronunciation"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/italian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/italian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/italian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/italian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/19"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/italian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=49"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/italian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9591,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/italian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49\/revisions\/9591"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/italian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=49"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/italian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=49"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/italian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=49"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}