How to pronounce every Italian sound in 18 Minutes

chiao I'm really glad that you clicked on this video because it means that you're not going to make the same mistake that most people make when they start learning Italian which is to ignore La pronun if you want to communicate smoothly and make yourself understood studies actually show that pronunciation can be more important than things like grammar and vocabulary that's why I'm going to try to teach you the essentials of Italian pronunciation in one video and as a non-native speaker myself I've actually had to learn how to pronounce sounds in Italian so I'll share what

worked for me and hopefully that will work for you [Music] too what should I do after he says I quite like the cheesy look at the camera but it's up to you if you are how many do you have hi I'm Bob Ross no really [Music] leali let's start with the vowels vowels are really important in Italian and they're actually really fun to pronounce but you've got to get your mouth moving as much as possible in English we tend to really eat our vowels so we'll say things like Opera whereas in Italian every vowel is

really important like inaa you have to really concentrate on enunciating every vowel and that's part of what gives Italian it's really nice nice musical quality when I listen to English speakers speaking in Italian I want to say open your mouth a laa Italian is really animated in this way so don't be afraid to mimic the big vowels and have fun with it remember to keep them really sharp and clear as well in English they tend to slide all over the place a little bit so we say no while Italians say not not so this in

Italian is O It's Not O it's O and this letter in Italian is O It's Not O It's to if you only learn one thing from this lesson remember to make your Italian vowels really clear and strong it's quick to learn and it will make a huge difference to your Italian and remember that in Italian the letter i is pronounced as e for example in the word me which means me and the letter e is pronounced as e for example in the word Ben which means well e e e e e and speaking of e

there's one small nerdy but very important detail to pay attention to and we'll talk about that at the end of the video for now let's move on to consonants with the GN combo like in the word lasag it's kind of like an N followed by a y but to make it sound really really Italian you want to be sure to push your tongue up flat against the roof of your mouth so Las Las you can also practice withi Italian potato dumplings and B which means bathroom B that of course is part of the most useful

Italian phrase do where's the bathroom next is the G combo in words like Volo and this is quite similar in the sense that it's like an L followed by a y but to make it sound really Italian be sure to again squish your tongue up against the roof of your mouth now try saying famia family or bottle the Italian R did you know that not all Italian RS are rolled in fact the single Italian R is actually pronounced pretty much the same as the Double T in the American pronunciation of words like better better better

the Italian word for to drink is so you can start with the American pronunciation of better better and then gradually move over to the Italian better better this is the same with the word matter matter sounds a lot like the Italian word Mar which means the sea so you can train yourself matter matter matter matter keep doing that and you'll see that you can probably do the single Italian R without too many problems try this again so let's go back to better better this time try to pay attention to your tongue so where is it

and what's happening when you say better and better notice how it actually flicks up and down really really quickly on that Ridge behind your teeth so keep this in mind because you'll need this for the next sound and again Americans are really really sorry for my terrible accent bear with me for the lesson come on conate improving your pronunciation can help you communicate much more easily in Italian in our online Italian school we focus on the things that matter most for example making yourself understood and using local sounding phrases to find out more click the

link in the description or here bye next the Double R now this one is rolled but with practice you can probably learn how to do it because I remember that I thought that I would never be able to learn how to roll my RS but after a lot of practice and then some more practice and then a lot more [Music] practice sometimes sounding like a flushing [Music] toilet I eventually managed to learn how to do it how well remember the Italian single are in words like be try and get that feeling again remember how your

tongue flicks up and down really quickly behind the teeth next with the same speed and lightness try to pronounce the letters t really quickly and relax your tongue as much as possible the more you relax it the more it will start to sound like the Italian once you can do that try putting it in some words for example in be be beer and AR arrive keep in mind that this one took me a really long time to learn so it does require a lot of practice but don't worry if you stick with it you'll get

there next up double consonants and you need to be really careful with these in Italian because they can be the difference between saying yeah and no and [Music] double consonants are longer in Italian so for example an an the double n is really long you almost want to imagine a little pause in between the two NS an no an no another example is the difference between Capell hair and Capell with two pe's which means hats Capell with one p Capell with two P's it's a subtle difference and it takes time to learn but Italians are

really friendly so give it a go anyway the H sound doesn't exist in Italian it's always silent so the word I have is spelled ho o but it's pronounced o if you sound like Father CHR or Santa when you're saying it as in ho ho ho that means you're saying it wrong so get rid of the H and just say oh p t and c this is another small detail but it will make a big difference to how you sound when you speak Italian so in English when we say p t and c loads of

air comes out of our mouth let's see an example with P pepper baby pepper peer the same is true of c and T for example Italian say Kaka Coco like this kaka kaka not like this caca caca and they say Tut everything like this Tut to not like this tuto too b d and g sound much stronger in Italian so almost like there's a little nasy buzzing sound before you open your mouth so BB it almost sounds like there's a m in front of it Bambino Bambino not like this baby baby the same is true

of du and G so so for example in Italian we say D die like this d d not like this d d and Italians say the word gag as in joke they use the English word sometimes too they say it like this gag gag not like this gag gag next the Italian s is quite easy to pronounce as long as you know the spelling rules most of the time it's just like the English s for example in words like C yes C or sto the same sto or insal salad insal but between two vowels s

sounds like Z for example in Kaza house Kaza or COA thing COA or na nose Nao this raises the question how do we pronounce this letter often it sounds like the T the TS at the end of the English word cats for example in the word pizza or gra thank you graia or breakfast but we also have words likeo can you hear the difference it's much stronger and very Buzzy like as though there's a d at the beginning of it and speaking of buzzing things a great word to practice with is zanara mosquito zanara I'm

not committed so how do you know if it's a t or a there are some rules that can guide us a little bit so for example words that end in like are always pronounced like with the TS but these rules can get really really fiddly and to be honest over time you can learn by ear but if you're feeling really really nerdy you can also check the phonetic spelling in a dictionary like this one here's another funny little spelling rule in Italian the letter c is usually pronounced as a hard C Sound for example in

Kaza or Capell and unusually for English speakers this includes the CH combo so the word c h e k is always pronounced K the CH combo is never pronounced like a soft CH as in the English word cheese it's always C like in C the only time it's pronounced as a soft CH is if it's followed by the letter i or E for example in the words chow or lionello G follows the same rules so it's usually a hard G sound like in the word spaghetti the only time it's ever a soft one is if

it's followed by the letter i or E so for example in the word J which means already J Oro which means gesture remember that important detail about the letter E in Italian that we talked about before well the word and in Italian is e with a closed jaw is known as a closed to say it is in Italian we have an open e e e e e can you see the difference so closed my jaws a little bit more closed so e e e Bro e k bro e in this case the little accent pointing

down on the air shows that it's open now you'll find closed e and open e in other Italian words as well and annoyingly the accent isn't usually there to show us the difference it's a really confusing detail that can also vary quite a lot from region to region so you don't need to worry about it too much for now just focus on the difference between closed a a and an open a it is because that's a really important one that will help you in everyday communication the same happens with the letter o in Italian so

we've got a close cled o o in words like and then we've got an open o or in words like or again this is one of those really teeny tiny details that will come with time as you listen and speak more Italian now for the super nerds among you there is a way of checking the difference uh so to see if a word has an open or a closed vowel if you look in the dictionary for the closed e the phonetic spelling will be like this and for the open a it'll be like this for

the closed or it looks like this and for the open or it looks like this and finally if I may I'd like to just share one last teeny tiny nerdy detail have you ever noticed how when Italians speak English they often say the word sleep like zleep the word zleep uh in Italian spelled SLI i p uh actually means underwear uh and we can hear how there's like a z sound it's much stronger so we get zleep zleep you can also hear this in the word which means to wake up or to make a mistake

when s is followed by a consonant it usually sounds like like a z the only exception for this is if it's followed by a t a c or a p so for example in the word space it just sounds like a compare that with so that was a lot of rules for pronouncing Italian pretty much all of them I think and if you're feeling overwhelmed I don't blame you so am I but just remember that this video is here to serve as a reference that you can come back to whenever you want to you don't

need to memorize all the rules in this video but what I'm really hoping that you take away from it is that you start to notice how words are pronounced in Italian so try and listen as carefully as possible and then try to copy them in an intuitive way and remember that you also have to be really patient because pronunciation is really a bit like going to the gym so you're tongue and your mouth muscles they need time to get used to the new positions so keep practicing little and often over a few weeks or a

few months and over time you'll really notice a lot of improvements in your prun Italiana and you which Italian word do you find most difficult to pronounce and which tip did you find the most useful leave us a comment and let us know ciao no SP this B do me again stop it sorry after make it filled that so the way actually not away [Music]