Lessons for English speakers

Learn to read Italian

A short, active path into reading Italian: decode real words from a small sound guide, learn where the endings and the verb sit, meet the past that fables are printed in, and read a whole fable before opening your first book.

13 core sections · ≈ 32 min + 3 optional lookups · ≈ 48 min with everything

The script

4 sections

Your first reading job: the vowels, and the two letters that change

≈ 2 min

What you'll learn

Italian is written the way it is said, so knowing the letters lets you say a word you have never seen.
Five vowels, one sound each, and every one is pronounced — including the last one.
c and g are hard before a, o, u and soft before e, i.
h has no sound of its own; its job is to keep c and g hard.
You already say several of these correctly at dinner: ciao, spaghetti, bruschetta.

Italian is written the way it is said. Once you know the letters you can say an Italian word out loud from its spelling, even one you have never seen. The spelling withholds only one thing — which piece of the word you lean on — and a section two steps from here deals with it.

The five vowels

Letter	Sound to try	Example
a	ah, as in father	casaKAH-zah“house”
e	eh, as in bed	verdeVEHR-deh“green”
i	ee, as in machine	piccoloPEEK-koh-loh“small”
o	oh, as in more	soleSOH-leh“sun”
u	oo, as in food	unoOO-noh“one”

English swallows its vowels; Italian gives each one its full value, including the one at the end of the word. caneKAH-neh“dog” has two pieces, not one. The letter h is silent wherever it appears.

c and g, in six cells

Letter	before a, o, u	before e, i	with an h put back in
c	hard k — casaKAH-zah“house”	soft ch — cieloCHEH-loh“sky”	hard k again — chikee“who”
g	hard g — gattoGAHT-toh“cat”	soft j — giornoJOR-noh“day”	hard g again — spaghettispah-GEHT-tee“spaghetti”

This is the one rule that trips up every English speaker, and these six cells are all of it. The h is not a sound: it is a wall that stops the e or the i from softening the letter in front of it. The same wall is why bruschetta is “broo-SKEHT-tah” and never “-shetta”. The full letter table, with the rarer letter teams, is in the script lookup — you do not need it yet.

Say three words you half-know already

Try each one aloud before revealing it.

ciao
c before an i is soft; the i is there only to soften it.
Show answer +Hide answer −
ciaochow“hello; bye”
chi
The h is a wall.
Show answer +Hide answer −
chikee“who”
giorno
g before an i.
Show answer +Hide answer −
giornoJOR-noh“day”