Difference between revisions of "Language/Italian/Grammar/Italian-Alphabet"

When 'i' comes before another vowel and is not stressed and inside the same syllable (apart from the case mentioned above!) it is pronounced 'j' like in English "Yesterday"

|/n/, /ŋ/ or /ɱ/|| like in English "Nice"; it changes to /ŋ/ before sounds /k/ or /g/ and to /ɱ/ before sounds /f/ or /v/. These are natural allophones of sound /n/ for most languages.

|/p/|| like in English "Pen" but without any expiration

- QUALE -> read /'kwa-le -- VACUA -> read /'va-kwa/

- QUESTO -> read /'kwe-sto/ -- INNOCUE -> read /i'n-nɔ-kwe/

- QUINDI -> read /'kwin-di/ -- TACCUINO -Z read /tak'-kwi-no/

- QUOTA  -> read /'kwɔ-ta/ -- CUORE -> read /'kwɔ-re/

|/r/ or /ɾ/|| like in Castellano "Rosa". Italian 'r' is pronounced with a rolling sound made by rapidly flipping the end of the tongue up and down against the teeth; It may be softer like /ɾ/ between vowels or at the beginning of a word (like Americans usually pronounce 't' between vowels, for example in "iT is" /ɪɾɪz/)

These are just general rules: according to regional inflections you may hear different ways Italians pronunce this letter, but choosing one sound or the other does not usually compromise the communication

* '''ascending diphthongs''': they are composed of I or U + all the other vowels; the I and the U are not stressed and are pronunced as half vowels while the following vowel is pronounced clearly as always, so '''IA /ja/, IE /je/ or /jɛ/, IO /jo/ or /jɔ/, IU /ju/''' and '''UA /wa/, UE /we/ or /w, UI /wi/, UO /wo/ or /wɔ/ ('''sounds /ji/ (II as a diphthong) and /wu/ (UU as a diphthong) do not exist in Italian). These diphthongs are pronounced exactly like in English YEsterday, YAwn, YOrk or WHAtch, WHen, WHIle etc.(you could just imagine to actually replace the I with an English Y and U with an English W)

* '''discending diphthongs''': these are dipthongs in which the clear and stressed vowel is the first one of the coupple while the following one is I or U. In these cases I or U are still pronounced clearly but are considered non-syllabic vowels and are sometimes considered as halfvowel as well, even if in terms of pronounciation they are not. So we have '''AI /ai/, EI /ei/ or ɛi/, II /ii/, OI  /oi/ or /ɔi/, UI /ui/''' and '''AU /au/, EU /eu/'''  (IU, OU, UU with stress on the first vowel do not exist in Italian, while II with stress on the first "I" does exist in many indicative past simple conjugations!).

Sometimes clusters of vowels must be pronounced separately and considered as the core of different syllables: in some cases this happens between vowels that by nature cannot make a diphthong, while in other occasions this happens even between vowels that could form a diphthong, so this could bring you to pronounce the word in a wrong way. This is called in anycase "'''hiatus'''". A hiatus is a suquence of vowel sounds each of which is the core of a different syllable.

* hiatus made between vowels that do not create a diphthong by nature: AEREO /a'ɛɾeo/ (it means "airplain"); this word has two hiatuses, one between A and E and the other between E and O); it is syllabized as '''A-E'''-R'''E-O'''

* hiatus made between vowels that could make a diphthong: VIA /'via/, (it means "road, street, avenue"); it is syllabized as V'''I-A,''' with stress on letter "I"

* hiatus made between vowels that could make a diphthong: BAULE /ba'ule/, (it means "(trasure)chest, trunk"); it is syllabized as B'''A-U'''-LE, with stress on letter "U"

- to mark the stress of a plurisyllabic word when it falls on the very last letter (truncated or oxytone words); '''mandatory for correct spelling'''

- to mark the stress of a monosyllabic word when it contains I + VOWEL and the stress falls on this very last vowel: in these cases you know you must not pronounce the vowels as a hiatus; '''mandatory for correct spelling'''

* GIÀ -> the stress shows that the word is monosyllabic and that is pronounced /dʒa/ and not /'dʒi-a/ with a hiatus

* PIÙ -> the stress shows that the word is monosyllaboc and that is pronounced /pju/ and not /'pi-u/ with a hiatus

* GIÙ -> pronounced /dʒu/ and not /'dʒi-u/

Very rarely it is used at the beginning of a word to write with an informal or a regional inflection

 

'NA COSA -> 'NA stands for "UNA"

- Parole tronche (truncated or oxytone words): words where the stress falls on the last syllable like in English "re-WARD" (a graphic accent must always be written for correct spelling when the syllable ends with a vowel, that is to say almost always!)

- Parole sdrucciole (proparoxytone words): words where the stress falls on the ante-penultimate syllable like in English "CI-ne-ma" (a graphic accent is not required for correct spelling)

As you can see, only troncated words require a graphic accent (acute or gave), but in the middle of a word accents are almost never written, so it is quite difficult to guess where the stress falls in Italian. Many words follow a specific pattern that repeats itself, so guessing the stress of some new words will be easier, but for many other it won't.

Italian words are usually composed of an alternation of consonants and vowels ending almost always with a vowel, like BANANA ('''c-v-c-v'''-c-v), PAROLA ('''c-v-c-v'''-c-v)

The last case you can find is a cluster of vowels (from two to three, very rarely four) that con behave in different ways: In fact when vowels are attached to one another they can form a diphthong, a triphthong or they can be pronounced separately forming a hiatus. This cannot be guessed from the writing and may be hard to hear when Italians speak so it must be learnt by heart most of the times, like AIUTARE ('''vvv'''-c-v-c-v), CIAO (c-'''vvv'''), POETA (c-'''vv'''-c-v), AIUOLE ('''vvvv'''-c-v).

# A consonant always needs a vowel after it so the most typical Italian syllable is made of consonant plus vowel, like BA, PE, SU, RI, CO, ZE etc.