Italian Pronunciation - Lesson 1

The Italian Alphabet

After this class you should;
to say the names of all of the letters in both the Italian Alphabet and the five letters of foreign origin.

Grammar

The Native Italian Alphabet

This chart shows the names of the letters in the Italian alphabet with pronunciation

Letter	Name	"Sounds Like"	Letter	Name	"Sounds Like"
a	a	AH	n	enne	EN-NAY
b	bi	BEE	o	0	OH
c	ci	CHEE	p	pi	PEE
d	di	DEE	q	cu	COO
e	e	AY	r	erre	AIR-RAY
f	effe	EF-FAY	s	esse	ES-SAY
g	gi	JEE	t	ti	TEE
h	acca	AHK-KA	u	u	OO
i	i	EE	v	vu (or vi)	VOO (or) VEE
l	elle	EL-LAY	z	zeta	ZAY-TAH
m	emme	EM-MAY

This chart shows Letters from words of foreign origin found in the Italian Language with pronunciation

Letter	Name	"Sounds Like"	Letter	Name	"Sounds Like"
j	i lunga	EE LOON-GA	x	ics	EEX
k	cappa	KAH-PAH	y	ipsilon	EEP-SEE-LONE
w	doppia vu	DOPE-PEE-AH VOO		(or) i greca	EE GRAY-KAH

Printable Homework

basic online exercise

Vocabulary

a
b
c
d
e
f
g

h
i
l
m
n
o

p
q
r
s
t
u
v

z

j
k
w
x
y

Printable vocabulary list

Printable large flash cards (Italian Side)

Downloadable Podcast

You can learn more about the Italian alphabet on these pages of the following books.

Page 1 (page #'s may vary as I have an older edition) of "Ciao" by Carla Federici & Carla Larese Riga, copyright 1986.

If you do not own these books, don't worry, it is not mandatory that you do unless you were instructed to buy them at the beginning of the class. However, they can be very useful in a lot of ways and if you would like to know more about these books and where to buy them, simply go to our online bookstore or quicker yet, just click on the appropriate book below.

Did you know? - A bit of Italian Trivia

" Why do you think Mozart composed most of his operas in italian rather than in German ?..."

Check out the ten reasons to learn Italian at 10 Reasons to learn Italian

Have you heard? - Some good Italian Music

If you have never heard of Anna Tatangelo then you are in for a treat. I am sure you will enjoy it but the real value in this part of this lesson is to take the time to listen to the pronunciation of the Italian words in this song. Allow yourself to start becoming accustom to how they sound.

This and many other
great songs are available on --->

Here are the song's lyrics,
read along while you listen to Anna and listen to her pronunciation of the words you see!

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