WTI Magazine #44    2014 October, 1
Author : Manuela Bianchi for learnitalygroup.com      Translation by:

Properly speaking a foreign language means diving into another culture, to understand how native speakers express themselves, studying the grammar and working on the curiosity and the preparation required to learn idioms and its common language expressions. It is a true journey into the unknown where we have to abandon the certainties of our mother language and dedicate ourselves to the complete discovery of a new way of representing and expressing the world that surrounds us. Grammar, syntax, vocabulary fields are certainly important to explore and deepen. Yet today I would like to point out an often overlooked field, phonetics: to speak well also means to pronounce it right.

In the Italian language we know that the similarity between the written form and the oral one undoubtedly makes our language more pleasing to our students. With respect to French, Italian hides fewer surprises and words like "casa" (home), "student" (student), "fatto" (done) are pronounced just like they are written. Yet, even in Italian there are cases of inconsistency between spelling and sound, as in the cases of grapheme , , , and certain consonant clusters such as , which can create a few small problems. Let's go to the heart of speech.

The grapheme is pronounced / k / in front of the vowels "a", "o", "u", such as "caro" (dear), "cute" (skin), "conte (count) and corresponds to the English sound of the letter "k" in the word "king". In other contexts, in front of the vowels "i" and "e", such as "cielo" (sky), ciao (hello), cera (wax) is pronounced as / tʃ /, ie with the same sound of the English word "child". The same problem occurs with the phoneme which is pronounced / g / in front of the vowels "a", "o", "u" and / dʒ / before "e" and "I". For example, "gara" (race), "gusto" (taste), gobbo (hunched) should be read with the sound / g /, the same as the English words "bag" and "gale". But "giro" (round) and "gesto" (gesture) are pronounced as in English are pronounced "jet" and "cage".

For some consonants, the picture is a bit more complex as in the case of and , considered graphemes of historic character. The first is found almost exclusively in the nexus / kw /, which originally in Latin was transcribed with the graphic sequence , and today we find it in words such as "quadrato" (square), "equo" (fair), etc. The second is an old heritage from Latin, it does not correspond to any sound, and it is mostly used in the present of the verb "to have" – "ho" (I have), "hai (you have), "ha" (he/she has), "hanno" (they have) to distinguish them from homophones "o" (or), "ai" (to), a (in or at), "anno" (year), or in consonant clusters such as and , eg "chiesa" (church) or "ghianda" (acorn) to indicate a certain pronunciation.

The nexus , is pronounced / sk / in front of "a", "o" and "u" as in the case of "scudo" (shield), "scala" (ladder) and "sconto" (discount) read as you can read "score" and "scan" of English. When it precedes the vowels "e" and "i", instead, is equivalent to the sound / ʃ /, such as in "scivolo" (slide), "scena" (scene), "scelta" (choice) which - for clarity - is pronounced like the nexus in the English words "ship", "cash", "short", etc.

Obviously, the peculiar cases of Italian phonetics are many and varied but soon we will get back on the subject to give you further guidance. And above all, remember that understanding the sounds of Italian and of any other language is as important as understanding its forms.

I like it!

The mistakes made by our students in the various LearnItaly locations are our main sources of inspiration to help us understand what is more difficult in the eyes of foreigners who want to learn our language. For example, errors such as "io piace il caffè" or "il viaggio mi ha piaciuto" made me reflect on the need to concentrate for a moment on the correct use of the verb "piacere" (to like).

The verb has a different conjugation from the English one: in Italian the subject is the object of appreciation, while, what in English is the subject, in Italian is the indirect object introduced by the preposition "a". Let's make an example: "Luca likes pasta" in Italian is "a Luca piace la pasta". If the indirect object is a pronoun, there are two possible constructions, one tonic and one atonic: for example, "a lei piacciono i dolci" or "le piacciono i dolci" (she likes sweets).

Referring to the incorrect sentence "il viaggio mi ha piaciuto", I conclude by briefly recalling that the compound tenses always need the verb to be "il viaggio mi è piaciuto" (I liked the trip) and that the participle "piaciuto" (liked) must always be agreed in gender and number with the subject.

If you do exercise you will see that it is simple. I'm sure you will like it!