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

The Italian alphabet contains 21 letters (5 vowels and 16 consonants). The letters J, K, W, X, and Y are only used in foreign words, and in scientific or technical terms. Nowadays it is common to use the English alphabet instead of the Italian one since lots of commonly used words contain J, K, W, X and Y.  

! Italian !! Name of the letter /IPA/  

Letter 'h' is also used in front of some persons of the verb "to have" conjugated in present indicative to distinguish them from homophone words:

- SCIE -> read as SCE (/ʃe/)

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"

The Italian 'z' is quite tricky: the correct pronunciation should be learnt by heart since there is no rule at all that could teach you when to say /ts/ and when to say /dz/. In fact every Italian, according to their regional inflection choose to use one sound or the other for each word: this does not compromise our communication anyway.

Italian language loves geminated consonants. In fact every single vowel sound (except /z/) exists in short version (as an English would pronounce) and in long version. When You see a word that is spelled with a double consonant (-BB-, -DD-, -FF- -ZZ- etc.) that consonants must be pronounced longer, with more effort. In IPA longer sounds are usually written adding ":" after the consonant sounds (see the pronunciation of letter F, S, M, N etc.)

* RUBA /'ruba/ --> he/she/it stoles  -  GOBBA /'gob:a/ --> humpback

* VOCE /'votʃe/ --> voice  -  FACCIA /'fat:ʃa/ --> face

* AGIO /'adʒo/ --> ease  -  MAGGIO /'mad:ʒo/ --> May

As for letter Z, whether its pronunciation is /ts/ or /dz/ and whether it is written once or twice, the correct way to say it is always long, double:

* RAZIONE /rat'tsjone/ --> ration, portion  -  PAZZO /'pat:so/ --> mad, crazy

* '''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!).

ATTENTION! a triphthong made first of a discending diphthong and then by an ascending one does not exist in Italian: the first vowel will be separated from the other two, making Vowel + ascending diphthong, like in MAIALE, where the vowel cluster -AIA- seems to be a discending diphthong /ai/ + an ascending diphthon /ja/, but is actually considerd as vowel /a/ + diphthong /ja/.  

As you can see, only E and O admit two types of accent: you should pick the grave accents on these vowels only when they are pronounced open /ɛ/ or /ɔ/, while you should use the acute accent when they are pronounced closed /e/ or /o/. For the other vowels only the grave accents is the correct one.  

- to distinguish homophone words that have a different grammar role (like in Castellano or French); '''mandatory for correct spelling'''  

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

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

In the Italian language stress cannot always be guessed by diacritics like in Greek, Spanish or Portuguese. It does not even fall always on a specific syllable like in French (always on the last) or in Icelandic or Finnish (always on the first). Even if the tendence is to pronounce words with the stress on the last but one syllable, many commonly used words do not follow this rule. Plus, when a word ends with more than one vowel, it is always difficult to syllabize correctly so getting to now the "right stressed syllable" isn't useful. When learning Italian, I suggest you to always mark in written form the stressed vowel and to repeat it out loud once or twice.

- 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)

- parole bisdrucciole: words with stress on the fourth syllable counting from the end. The Italian language also has words where the stress falls way back towards the starting syllables and still having other three syllables after them. These words are almost always conjugated verbs, sometimes with pronouns attached in the end (a graphic accent is not required for correct spelling). For example:

#The vowel core of the syllable can me made not only of just one vowel: if the vowel is a part of a dipthong or a triphthong, this will stick together inside the syllable, so we'll have syllables like PIA, /pja/ (rule 2 + ascending d.), CUI /kui/ (rule 2 + discending d.), VUOI /vwɔi/ (rule 2 + triphthong made of ascending + discending d.), SCUO /skwɔ/ (rule 4 + ascending d.), SBRAI (rule 5 + discending d.) etc.. Unfortunately only pronunciation can clarify whether a group of vowels sounds like a diphthong/triphthong or a hiatus

CR'''E'''DERE: C needs the following E and accepts R between them, D needs the second E and R needs the third E; separate the groups from the letters before

ASPRAM'''E'''NTE: SPR is a cluster of three letters beginning with an S and ending with an R so they stick together and need a vowel after them, the second A; M needs the vowel after it, the first E; N and T don't like to be together so they separate making the N belonging with the previous syllable and T needing the vowel after, that is to say the second E; letter A stands by it self because SPRA is already good with its vowel core

INFLORESC'''E'''NZA: we have the cluster NFL, looking for a vowel core after it: as a consonant accepts L between itself and the vowel core, F accepts L and O, while N gets separated and stays behind; R looks for the first E; SCE is the typical syllable for sound /ʃe/ and cannot be separated; cluster NZ cannot stick toghere since the first is not an S and the second is nor L or R, so they get separated and N stays behind while Z looks for its vowel core, that is to say A

CONT'''I'''NUO: C looks for the first O; NT gets separated so N stays with CO, while T looks for I; N looks for the following vowel core which is an ascending diphthong /wo/ so they stay together

PU'''O'''I: P looks for a vowel but finds three of them: this is a triphthong made of the ascending UO /wɔ/ and the discending OI /oi/ so it is a monosyllable

MAG'''I'''A: M looks for the following vowel A, G looks for the following vowel that seems to be a diphthong: however the stress is exactly on I so this creates a hiatus between it and A and must be separated (G will only take I)

* Correct pronounced Italian (meaning Italian spoken without any dialect inflection) exists but it is an artifical language spoken only by television presentators, radio speakers, voice actors, while common people, including every single Italian teacher, has a regional inflection, which can make the spelling harder sometimes

However Italian people love to talk, usually try to understand a foreigner even if their pronounciation is bad and this will allow You to be submerged by the language.

Learning Italian is considered to be easy, but there are a few steps that you shouldn't avoid while learning: