I Piccoli Italiani 
(E Pee-COHL-lee ee-tah-lee-AH-nee, The Little Italians)

The club is open to anyone who would like to begin to learn the basics of 
the Italian language.  These lessons will be very simple, hence the name "I 
Piccoli Italiani" (The Little Italians).  We will pick up the basics, as we 
would have as a if we were babies in the family.  The disadvantage is that
we really have no "master" or parents to listen to imitate, nor do we have 
them to make corrections.  The goal would be to become familiar with some 
basic Italian words, phrases and expressions, that we could carry out some 
limited communication.  The secondary goal would be to give us enough 
background to allow us to tackle a real live Italian course some day. 
HAVE FUN!

PRONOUNCIATION GUIDE FOR BAMBINI

The Italian alphabet is fairly similar to our own (English, or depending on where 
you're from, American). The letters K, J, W, X, Y occur only in foreign origin words.

 
a, e, i, o, u --- The Italian vowels have only one sound, regardless of what letters 
they precede or follow, or accent marks on the vowel, with the (minor) exception 
of e and o.

a--- The a is always pronounced as in the English word car.

e --- The e has the sound of the e in bed.  Actually there are two sounds of e 

ancent mark e or 'e---an OPEN one, indicated with the grave accent :

e accent mark or e'---a CLOSED one, indicated with the acute accent :

Note however that such accents are NOT normally written (unless they are required
for tonic reasons), and appear only in dictionaries. Moreover, dictionaries report 
an "ideal" Tuscan pronunciation which  is subject to ample regional variations. 
For instance the words perche' (why) and ste'lla (star) are usually pronounced in 
the North as perche' and st'ella. In general a mispronunciation at this level won't 
be noticed, or if it is noticed (for instance me'la (apple) is pronounced everywhere
 like that, and if you pronounce m'ela it will sound funny) you will be understood. 
There are words in which a difference in accent causes a different meaning, as 
in p'esca (peach) and pe'sca (fishing), but in the North pronounce both words as the
 first one and are understood everywhere.

A note on accents : dictionaries indicate the tonic accent, i.e. put an accent on 
the vowel in the stressed syllable in the word (this is in  the vast majority of 
cases the last but one, so called "plain" or "flat" words). This accent is not used 
and not required in normal writing. In normal writing the accent is required ONLY 
if the word ENDS with an accented vowel (i.e. the last syllable is accented, so 
called "truncated" words), e.g. perche'. In handwriting do not bother to use the 
acute or the grave accent, just put any little sign over the vowel. On typewriters 
with Italian keyboards there are accented keys. On computer keyboards we usually
 prefer to use ASCII keyboards without accented keys, and just use an apostrophe
 instead of the accent, e.g. perche' : it is simpler and more portable.

i---The Italian i is the same as the English long e or ee as in see.

o---The o is always pronounced as the o in the word cold or dog. Here too 
actually there are two sounds of o : 

accent mark o or 'o---an OPEN one, indicated with the grave accent(similar to dog) 
 
o accent mark or o'--- a CLOSED one, indicated with the acute accent :(similar to cold) The 
same comments made above for the letter e hold. 

u--- The Italian u has the sound of the English oo as in too or the English ue as 
in blue. 

c, ci, ch 

              The Italian c has 2 possible sounds. It can sound like the ch in chip, or 
like the k in kite. Unlike English, there are very strict rules about when the 
Italian c sounds like a ch or a k. If the c precedes (comes before) an e or an i, 
the c will have a ch sound. For example, undici.  If the group ci precedes an
 a, o or u, it is also pronounced as ch AND the i is mute : ciao sounds as 
English chao. If the c precedes any other letter (a, o, u, or a consonant, 
although the latter is very rare), then it will have a k sound, as in comodo. 
If the group ch precedes an i, or an e, it is pronounced as k : chi sounds as 
English kee. The word cucina has both types of c in it - the first c makes 
the k sound, and the second c makes the ch sound. 

g, gi, gh 

              The Italian g has 2 possible sounds. It can sound like the g in got, 
or like the j or dg in judge. The rules are similar to the ones described above
for c. Thus getto is pronounced as English jet-toh, and gioia as English joy-ah. 
While gotto and ghetto are pronounced as English got-toh and get-toh. 

gli---The gli (followed or not by another vowel) in Italian is pronounced more 
or less as ll in Spanish; However there are words like glicine (flower name),
negligente, anglicano in which, for etymological reasons, g and l are pronounced
as two separate sounds as in English.  Thus, the Italian word coniglio (rabbit) is
pronounced like conihlyo.  and the word conigli (rabbits) is pronounced like conihli.
 
gn---The gn is the same sound as Spanish – i.e. is the same sound as the ny pair
 in the word canyon. Thus, signore is pronounced like sin-yore. 

h--- The Italian h is always silent and as such an Italian speaker won't 
pronounce it when it occurs in foreign origin words (e.g. hotel).  Moreover 
the letter h in Italian occurs only in the groups ch and gh (see below) and 
in the present tense of the verb "to have". Thus, ho ( [I] have) is pronounced 
o and hanno ( [they] have) is pronounced anno, the same as the word anno (year). 


j y 
              In Italian j and y are not used, and when they occur (in foreign or
 arcaic words), they are pronounced as an Italian i. 

r--- As opposed to the English r, which is formed in the back of the mouth
 with the back of the tongue, the Italian r is formed using the tip of the 
tongue on the upper palate, behind the front teeth, more like the English d. 


rr and all other double consonants. 

              All times a double consonant is written, it is actually pronounced 
twice. It takes practice to do it well. 

s 
              The Italian s may have two pronounciations. One of them is like 
English z or s : rosa is pronounced similarly to English rose with a terminal 
ah. The other one is like English s e.g. in set : sette is pronounced like 
set-teh. There are no definite rules on two pronounciations (although 
some dictionaries report the "correct"  one), and there are regional variations
in the pronounciation of the same word. In general you will be understood, even
if your pronounciation may sound strange. As a rule of thumb, s followed by 
vowel in the second or further syllable of a word, has the z sound (e.g. rosa, 
casa), while s followed by vowel or consonant (usually t or p) at the beginning 
of a word is an s sound : sette, stare. 

w 
              In Italian w is not used, and when it occurs (in foreign words), a 
native Italian would pronounce it as a v. 

v 
              Sounds exactly like in English. 

z 
              The Italian z is pronounced much harder than an English, like sound 
ts, or tz, like in word tzar. There are actually two variant of the z sound in 
Italian, which are marked in dictionaries, but are subject to regional variations 
and make little difference for the everyday speaker.