Italy Pronunciation

There are seven vowel sounds in standard Italian. A, i, and u each have one pronunciation. E and o each have two slightly different pronunciations, one open and one closed, depending on the vowel’s placement in the word, the stress, and the regional accent. Below are approximate pronunciations.

Vowel	Pronunciation
a	“a” as in “father” (casa)
e (closed)	“ay” as in “gray” (sera)
e (open)	“eh” as in “wet” (sette)
i	“ee” as in “cheese” (vino)
o (closed)	“o” as in “bone” (sono)
o (open)	“aw” as in “ought” (bocca)
u	“oo” as in “moon” (gusto)

Consonants

C and G: Before a, o, or u, c and g are hard, as in candy and goose or as in the Italian colore (koh-LOHR-eh; color) and gatto (GAHT-toh; cat). Italians soften c and g into ch and j sounds, respectively, when followed by i or e, as in cheese and jeep or the Italian cibo (CHEE-boh; food) and gelato (jeh-LAH-toh; ice cream).
Ch and Gh: H returns c and g to their “hard” sounds in front of i or e (see above): chianti (ky-AHN-tee), the Tuscan wine, and spaghetti (spah-GEHT-tee), the pasta.
Gn and Gli: Pronounce gn like the ni in onion, or as in the Italian bagno (BAHN-yoh; bath). Gli is pronounced like the lli in million, or as in the Italian sbagliato (zbal-YAH-toh; wrong).
Sc and Sch: When followed by a, o, or u, sc is pronounced as sk. Scusi (excuse me) yields “SKOO-zee.” When followed by an e or i, sc is pronounced sh as in sciopero (SHOH-pair-oh; strike). The addition of the letter h returns c to its hard sound (sk) before i or e, as in pesche (PEHS-keh; peaches).
Double consonants: When you see a double consonant, stress the preceding vowel; failure to do so can lead to confusion. For example, penne all’arrabbiata is “short pasta in a spicy, red sauce,” whereas pene all’arrabbiata means “penis in a spicy, red sauce.”

Stress

In Italian, the stress generally falls on the penultimate, or next-to-last, syllable. An accent usually indicates when it falls on a different syllable, such as with the word città (cheet-TAH; city).