Chapter 5 of 16 · Explore the Italian path
Optional reference · Chapter 5 of 16
Script lookup: every letter, every letter team
Open this when a word will not come apart. Every letter, the eight letter teams like gli and gn, and the spellings whose sound is not the one you expect.
≈ 5 min of reading · Practise at your own pace
What’s in this chapter
- Open this when a word will not come apart. The stories ahead do not need it.
- The Italian alphabet is twenty-one letters; j, k, w, x and y turn up only in borrowed words.
- Eight letter teams cover every remaining sound: ch, gh, ci, gi, sc, sch, gli, gn.
- The last three blocks are the spelling-is-not-the-sound cases, collected in one place.
You do not need this section to finish the lesson. It is here for the moment a word will not come apart in your mouth — an unfamiliar letter pair, a spelling that refuses to match the sound you expect. Look up the row, then go straight back to where you were. Nothing in the two stories at the end depends on reading it.
The five vowels
Each vowel keeps one sound wherever it sits in a word. Find the letter, try the sound, then say the example.
- aah, as in fathercasaKAH-zah“house”
- eeh, as in bedverdeVEHR-deh“green”
- iee, as in machinepiccoloPEEK-koh-loh“small”
- ooh, as in moresoleSOH-leh“sun”
- uoo, as in foodunoOO-noh“one”
Each vowel keeps its full value, even in the middle of a long word, and even at the end of one.
Letters that do not sound like English
These behave differently from the English letters that share their shape. Look up the one that stopped you, then go back to your word.
- ck before a, o, u — but the ch of church before e and icasa and ciao: one letter, two sounds, and the vowel after it decides which.caneKAH-neh“dog”
- gg as in go before a, o, u — but j as in jam before e and igatto and gelato — the same pair of sounds, one letter down from c.gattoGAHT-toh“cat”
- hno sound at all. Its job is to keep c and g hardh is a shield: it hardens c and g. chi = “kee”.hooh“I have”
- rtapped — the tongue flicks once behind the top teeth. Never the English rThe tt of an American “butter” — one flick, not a growl.rossoROHS-soh“red”
- ss as in sit, but usually the z of rose between two vowelsCaught between two vowels it goes lazy: casa is “KAH-zah”.casaKAH-zah“house”
- zts as in cats, or dz as in kids — the word decides, and either is understoodThe ts you already say in pizza.grazieGRAH-tsyeh“thank you”
- qukw. The q never appears without its uq never travels without u — the same inseparable pair as English queen.quikwee“here”
The eight letter teams
Some Italian sounds are spelled with two or three letters together. Read a team as one sound rather than sounding out each letter.
- chk — never the ch of churchh is a shield: chi = “kee”, never “chee”.chikee“who”
- ghg as in goThe same shield on g — and you already say it in spaghetti.spaghettispah-GEHT-tee“spaghetti”
- cithe ch of church; before another vowel the i is silent and is there only to soften the cciaochow“hello; bye”
- gij as in jam; before another vowel the i is silentThe j of gelato, the same one English borrowed.giornoJOR-noh“day”
- scsh as in ship before e or i; sk before a, o, uThe sh you already say in prosciutto.pescePEH-sheh“fish”
- schsk — the same h doing the same jobThe shield again: never “-shetta”.bruschettabroo-SKEHT-tah“bruschetta”
- glithe lli of million: the flat of the tongue on the roof of the mouth, l and y togetherfamigliafah-MEE-lyah“family”
- gnthe ni of onion: the same broad tongue contact, with the air going through the nose — not g then ngn as in lasagna — you already say it.gnocchiNYOHK-kee“gnocchi”
The five letters Italian does not use
Italian words are built from twenty-one letters. Meeting one of these five tells you the word was borrowed from another language.
- jborrowed words only: jeans, judo
- kborrowed words only: karate, kiwi
- wborrowed words only: weekend, wafer
- xborrowed words only: taxi, extra
- yborrowed words only: yoga, yogurt
The Italian alphabet is twenty-one letters, not twenty-six. If you see one of these five, the word came in from somewhere else and is usually said roughly the way the lending language says it.
Spelling on the left, sound on the right
Use this when the sound you expect and the spelling on the page will not meet. Find the letters on the left, read the sound on the right.
The words on this path that lean further back
Most words lean on the second-to-last piece. These three do not, and nothing in the spelling warns you, so learn them by sight.
There is no rule to derive those from. Learn each one when you meet it.
Two accents that are not about the lean at all
An accent usually tells you where to lean. In these two pairs it does another job: keeping apart two words that sound the same.