Italian Language Stack Exchange
Italian Language Stack Exchange

Questions tagged [pronunciation]

For questions about the sounds, intonation, and stress of how words are uttered or produced.

This tag is for questions about the sounds, intonation, and stress of how words are uttered or produced.

94 questions
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On the pronunciation of gnocco and gnocchi

I do not speak a word Italian but I wanted to solve the obligatory dispute amongst ignorants about the pronunciation of gnocco and gnocchi by looking up the IPA pronunciation on the Internet. Unfortunately my results were non-satisfactory (for…
Wrzlprmft
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Can anyone help me with the proper pronunciation of the lateral palatal approximante (aka 'gli' trigraph)?

I've been learning Italian for the last year. While being fluent in Spanish helps tremendously, there is one infamous sound that is lacking from both English and my dialect of Spanish: gli. I understand that gli is a palatal approximate and that it…
Giambattista
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14
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3 answers

How do Italians pronounce the names of programming languages?

Is there a standard form of pronunciation for programming languages in Italy? Is it preferable to pronounce in English or in Italian? In other words, suppose I'm explaining, in Italian, something about software development, will it sound more…
William Barbosa
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Are there liaisons in Italian?

I am brand new to Italian and have only studied it for a few days. I was listening to the song "Certamente" by Madreblu and reading along with the lyrics and noticed how when a word that ends with a vowel is followed by a word that begins with a…
temporary_user_name
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7
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Stressed syllable

I've been learning Italian recently just by myself on a very casual basis. One thing that I find confusing is which syllable to stress. I've read the rules - i.e. usually the penultimate syllable is stressed, unless there is an accent mark on the…
Klitos Kyriacou
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7
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4 answers

What words that have vowel + s + vowel are pronunced /s/ instead of /z/?

Italian words with the format vowel + s + vowel are typically pronounced /z/, like: mese cosa esercizio But some words break this rule, and are pronounced /s/, like: stasera (because it comes from "sera", which has an initial s and is always…
nachocab
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7
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I need to know how to pronounce the name "Job" in Italian

So a long time ago, there was this Italian chemist (at least I think he was Italian, because he published in Italian journals of chemistry), whose last name was Job. He invented a really useful tool that chemists still use to this day called a Job…
gamachem
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7
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1 answer

Pronouncing J's

I don't know very much about Italian, but I was trying to learn a bit, and I came across Jesolo- I was wondering how J's get treated in Italian. I know they aren't native Italian letters, but I can't find how they are pronounced-sites are saying…
user679
6
votes
3 answers

Does R + vowel at starts of a word pronounce like RR?

I just read this page and found that it listed these words under the /ɾ/ sound: /ɾ/ fare, amaro, regalo Note the bold word. In Spanish and Portuguese, if a single R is at the start of a word, it pronounces the same as RR. Although in Portuguese RR…
iBug
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Perché si dice WC (vi ci) ma WWW è vu vu vu?

Salve, uno studente mi ha chiesto perché nella parola WC la doppia V si pronuncia come una "vi", ma la doppia V di un sito internet è invece pronunciata "vu". Chi mi sa spiegare il motivo? Grazie!
FionaD
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6
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1 answer

Pronuncia strana della "s" dopo una "r": un fenomeno romano o di tutta l'Italia?

Vivo a Roma da un po' di tempo e ho visto che la s a volte si pronuncia come una z sorda (cioè, /t͡s/) dopo una r. Alcuni esempi: Persona spesso si pronuncia come perzona o /pert͡sona/ Verso come verzo o /vɛrt͡so/ Corso come corzo o /kort͡so/ Ho…
Yay
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6
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Accento in parole composte

Mi chiedo quali siano le regole di accentazione delle parole composte, se ne esistono. È noto che la maggior parte delle parole italiane sono piane. Quello che vorrei scoprire è se esistono regole, o tendenze comuni, nell'accentazione di parole…
alelom
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La pronuncia standard dell'italiano è effettivamente cambiata, ed in particolare, si è "settentrionalizzata"?

Recentemente ho iniziato a prendere lezioni di dizione da un'attrice diplomata, per correggere la cadenza dialettale (meridionale) ed alcuni vezzi di pronuncia. Ebbene, molti degli errori che mi sono stati segnalati me li aspettavo, ma dopo aver…
Vincenzo Oliva
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5
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Prosodic stress in Italian

Just when you think you've got your ear attuned to when one ought to drop a note/ tone (or whatever it should be called) when speaking an Italian sentence, you listen to words that don't seem to follow this "pattern". Can anyone give a concise…
Dan
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5
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Why are the endings to these two words pronounced differently? Mangia ~ Genealogia

Why is mangia pronounced with a "ja" sound of one syllable at its end, and genealogia pronounced with two syllables, with the sounds "gee" and "ah"? They are both spelled gia. I thought the rules for pronouncing Italian were pretty fixed, but here…
Msfolly
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