![]() ![]() One thing to remember is that if there’s another vowel after ‘gi’ or ‘ci’, you should pronounce only the second vowel! The ‘i’ only softens the sound of the ‘g’ or ‘c’. So now you can pronounce cera (wax), cucina (kitchen), and gelato (duh!). When followed by ‘e’ or ‘i’, the Italian ‘c’ is pronounced like ‘tch’ in the English ‘watch’, and the Italian ‘g’ is pronounced like ‘j’ in ‘Justin’. ![]() Reminder: accent on the second-to-last syllable – ca-sa, co-sa, gu- i-do. Now you know how to pronounce casa (house), cosa (thing), and Guido (man’s name). It’s easier than it looks! The sound is hard when the letter is followed by ‘a’, ‘o’, or ‘u’, so ‘c’ is pronounced like ‘k’, and ‘g’ as in the English word ‘go’. Store in Hong Kong (photo by istolethetv, used under CC license) An ‘e’ at the end of a word is not silent – Salvatore (man’s name) is sal-va -to-reh. As you can imagine, a vowel in a stressed syllable is a bit longer than in an unstressed syllable. Here are the approximate British-English equivalents: ‘a’ as in ‘car’, ‘e’ as ‘get’, ‘i’ like the ‘y’ in ‘springy’, ‘o’ as in ‘go’, and ‘u’ like the ‘oo’ in ‘book’. Unlike English vowels, which can be pronounced in many ways (for example, go, got, gown), Italian ones are pronounced in pretty much the same way all the time. The best way to get a feel for the language is to listen to native speakers. There are a few exceptions, such as università (pronounced u-ni-ver-si- ta, not u-ni-ver- si-ta) and opera ( op-era, not op- er-a). In general, the emphasis is on the second-to-last syllable, e.g. Once you’ve got the rules down, you will never fumble while ordering gnocchi ai funghi or looking for an Ermenegildo Zegna store. They are relatively few and highly consistent, making the language easy to pronounce. Well, you don’t need Feynman’s IQ to figure out the rules of Italian pronunciation. He replied, “You’ll have to go ask the girls – they understood what language it was right away.” Later a couple of teachers sought him out to settle their dispute as to whether his poem was in Latin or Italian. He then recited several verses – very emotionally – in fake Italian, and had the girl scouts in splits. Unfazed, Feynman declared that he would recite a poem, but unfortunately it was not in English. Suddenly it was announced that the dads were expected to entertain the crowd. When he was in college, he accompanied his younger sister to her Girl Scouts banquet (he was filling in for their dad). But he told the story of how he faked it, just for laughs. Not only did he know a thing or two about science (he won the Nobel Prize in 1965), but as an adult he learned how to speak Japanese, play a Brazilian musical instrument, and how to paint (he even sold some art). American physicist Richard Feynman was a genius. ![]()
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