{"id":5989,"date":"2014-05-21T15:04:27","date_gmt":"2014-05-21T15:04:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/italian\/?p=5989"},"modified":"2014-05-22T10:51:07","modified_gmt":"2014-05-22T10:51:07","slug":"its-all-in-the-accent-part-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/italian\/its-all-in-the-accent-part-2\/","title":{"rendered":"It’s All In The Accent – Part 2."},"content":{"rendered":"

Last week in <\/font><\/em><\/strong>It\u2019s All In The Accent<\/font><\/em><\/strong><\/a>, we took a look at how we use accents in written Italian, and how they can completely change the meaning of some words. Astute students of Italian will have noticed though that we use two different accents: ` <\/strong>accento grave<\/strong> (grave accent) used in open sounds such as \u00e8<\/strong> (it is), and \u00b4 accento acuto<\/strong> (acute accent) which we use for closed sounds such as perch\u00e9<\/strong> (why\/because). <\/p>\n

\"Cover-Perch\u00e9-300\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Now, if that explanation seems chiaro come la pece<\/strong> (as clear as tar), don\u2019t worry \u2026 you\u2019re not alone. It\u2019s not even clear to most Italians \u2026 including me! Only Tuscans and Romans are said to be able to distinguish the two different sounds related to these accents. Even at school we\u2019re not taught the difference between them, and in everyday handwriting we tend to simply use an ambiguous small mark resembling a sort of a bowl, a bit like a lazy bracket lying on its back (see image below).<\/em> Teachers only tend to look for our ability to mark the vowels that need an accent, e basta<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

\"Z<\/a><\/p>\n

So basically, don\u2019t worry if you end up using the wrong accent, most Italians won\u2019t even notice. Having said that, however, I\u2019ll now try to clarify the two accents \u2026 specially for those of you who really like to be 100% correct. I\u2019m writing this with two grammar books open in front of me because \u2026 I\u2019m scared I\u2019ll mess it up. Allora, cominciamo dall\u2019inizio<\/strong> (so let\u2019s begin from the beginning): <\/p>\n

1. The Easy Bit:<\/strong><\/font> The three vowels a, i, u<\/strong> never change sound. The accent used to mark truncated words ending in a, i, u<\/strong> is traditionally the ` <\/strong>grave accent. Some examples are: citt\u00e0<\/strong> (city\/town), piet\u00e0 <\/strong>(pity, mercy), luned\u00ec<\/strong> (Monday), sent\u00ec<\/strong> (he\/she heard), pi\u00f9<\/strong> (more), Ges\u00f9<\/strong> (Jesus), and so on. According to my grammar book, there is no apparent explanation for this!<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\"200px-Latin_small_and_capital_letter_a_with_grave\"<\/a><\/td>\n\"Finche-divorzio-non-ci-separi_oggetto_editoriale_w300\"<\/a><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

2. The Harder Bit:<\/font><\/strong> The vowels \u2018e\u2019<\/strong> and \u2018o\u2019<\/strong> can have either an open or closed sound. However, the vowel \u2018o\u2019<\/strong> in truncated words such as per\u00f2<\/strong> (but), sar\u00f2<\/strong> (I will be) is generally an open sound, these days, therefore, the rule is that \u2018o\u2019<\/strong> always uses the `<\/strong> grave accent. <\/p>\n

3. Finally \u2026 The Really Hard Bit:<\/font><\/strong> the majority of truncated words ending in \u2018e\u2019<\/strong> have an open sound, which uses the `<\/strong> grave accent, e.g. caff\u00e8<\/strong> (coffee), \u00e8<\/strong> (it is), cio\u00e8<\/strong> (that is). But, there’s a small group of words that ends with an \u00b4 <\/strong>acute accent. Here are the most common ones:  <\/p>\n

affinch\u00e9 <\/strong>= so that, in order that<\/p>\n

bench\u00e9<\/strong> = although<\/p>\n

cosicch\u00e9<\/strong> = so that<\/p>\n

finch\u00e9 <\/strong>= until<\/p>\n

giacch\u00e9<\/strong> = as, since<\/p>\n

perch\u00e9 <\/strong>= why, because<\/p>\n

poich\u00e9 <\/strong>= as, because<\/p>\n

purch\u00e9<\/strong> = provided that<\/p>\n

n\u00e9 \u2026 n\u00e9<\/strong> = neither \u2026 nor<\/p>\n

s\u00e9<\/strong> = himself, herself<\/p>\n

numerals ending with tre<\/strong> (three), e.g.  ventitr\u00e9,<\/strong> trentatr\u00e9, ecc.<\/strong> = twenty-three, thirty-three, etc.<\/p>\n

A <\/font>proposito di ventitr\u00e9 <\/font><\/font><\/strong>(speaking of twenty-three), in Italian we have the rather nice expression portare il cappello sulle ventitr\u00e9<\/font><\/strong> = to wear one\u2019s hat at 11 p.m. (23:00), referring to the angle of the hat, as shown in the photo below.<\/p>\n

\"piers-atkinson\"<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\"\"

Last week in It\u2019s All In The Accent, we took a look at how we use accents in written Italian, and how they can completely change the meaning of some words. Astute students of Italian will have noticed though that we use two different accents: ` accento grave (grave accent) used in open sounds such…<\/p>\n

Continue Reading<\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"author":19,"featured_media":6017,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"content-type":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[350999,351000,350347],"class_list":["post-5989","post","type-post","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-grammar","tag-acute-accent-in-italian","tag-grave-accent-in-italian","tag-how-to-use-the-accent-in-italian"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/italian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5989","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=5989"}],"version-history":[{"count":20,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/italian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5989\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6025,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/italian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5989\/revisions\/6025"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/italian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6017"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/italian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5989"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/italian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5989"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/italian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5989"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}