| Hi everyone, welcome back to ItalianPod101.com. My name is Desy, 'mi chiamo Desy', and in this video, we're going to talk about basic knowledge of Italian language, consonants: |
| Le consonanti |
| First of all, let's say that there are 16 of them but 5 are used only for words that come from another language. Let's see their sounds together starting with the basic ones. |
| B |
| You see what happens here with the lips? |
| bambino |
| C |
| Casa (house) |
| But the 'C' sound can also be pronounced as 'ch' as in: |
| Cesto which means basket. |
| So, when do you pronounce it as 'k' and when as 'ch'? |
| When C is followed by a sound as a, o or u is said it has a hard sound, so it is pronounced as in: |
| Casa |
| Cuoco (you see has both, o and u) |
| While when there is i or e, it's a soft sound, like in: |
| Cibo (food) or |
| Cena (dinner) |
| Now, the letter i can also be followed by some other vowels. In that case it is not pronounced, like in 'ciao', hi, we don't say 'c-i-a-o'. So it just modifies the hard sound and makes it a soft sound, it is not 'kao' but 'ciao'. So you know that is soft, like in 'cielo', sky, which is not 'c-i-e-l-o' but 'cielo'. |
| D |
| As in Desyre, my name, Desyre, or in 'dado', dice,'dado'. |
| F |
| Farfalla, "butterfly." |
| Farfalla |
| G |
| It comes from here, G. Sometimes, same as with C, it is pronounced 'j'. The rules are the same: |
| Gatto (cat) |
| Gonna (skirt) |
| Gusto (taste, flavor) or |
| Gustoso, which means "tasty." |
| While with 'i' or 'e' the sound soft like in… |
| Gelato (ice cream) or |
| Gusto, which means "right." So the same 'gusto' with an 'i' becomes 'giusto', flavor and right, 'gusto' and 'giusto'. |
| Now, the 'h' is always mute in Italian, so you don't pronounce it. Like in 'hotel', or as you know 'io ho', I have. And when it follows a C or G sound it makes it hard, even if it is followed by a vowel. Like with 'che', with the 'ch' there are not so many, actually. |
| Chimica, "chemistry." |
| While, if there was no h it would be 'cimica', which is not a word but it is to make you understand how the sound work. |
| L |
| Leone, "lion." Here before your teeth.' |
| M |
| Mamma, "mom" |
| Mamma mia! "Oh my god!," my mom. |
| N |
| Nonna, "granma" |
| Nonno, "granpa" |
| P |
| Penna, "pen" |
| Q |
| Now, 'q' is always followed by 'u' in Italian: 'qu'. And there are not actually too many words. |
| Quadro, like a "painting." |
| R |
| The one that everyone has got problems with. |
| It rolls, right? You have to make it vibrate. You don't have to prolong it too much. |
| Rosso, but it still has to roll, rosso (red). Practice it! |
| What we say to kids when they are not able to do that if you make that practice is: |
| Ramarro marrone, 'ramarro' is a green lizard, now I am emphasizing that but it doesn't have to be that long, 'ramarro'. 'Marrone' is brown, so 'ramarro marrone' is a brown green lizard, which doesn't have to exist, you just have to follow the sound of the words. Ramarro marrone. |
| S |
| We actually have two pronunciations for this letter. One is the most common one, it's called soft one, and is when the letter is at the beginning of the word like in sister, 'sorella' . You see it is the same 's', sister, 'sorella', 's' soft one. |
| While, there is also a hard one, which is actually more close to a zed sound, 'z', which is when the letter is in between two vowels, when the 's' is in between two vowels. Like in 'naso', nose. You see, it is not 'naso', which would be the 's' from 'sorella', sister, but 'naso' more like a zed. |
| T |
| Televisione, "television." |
| V |
| Vaso, "vase." |
| Then we have zed. |
| Z |
| Which is kind of like 's', right? But 'z', stronger. In fact, the problem with 'z' is that, as I've just told you, 's' has two different pronunciations and one is really close to zed. So, when we actually pronounce the letter zed, it is often heard as a double one. Like in 'stazione' (station) it really seems like it has two 'z', tight? But the truth is, spelling wise, it is just one. Also because there are not many with double 'z', just maybe 'zazzera', but you see in the pronunciation you can't really understand the difference. 'Zazzera' is when you have messy hair but it is really peculiar anyway. |
| Last thing is, as I mentioned at the beginning there are 5 more consonants that are used for words that come from foreign languages. Those are pronounced as in the foreign languages they come from. So we have: |
| J |
| For, let's say, 'judo', cause that's how it is pronounced in Japanese, right? And that's where the word comes from. |
| Kappa or K |
| It is just like a 'k' but stronger. |
| 'Kit'.' |
| Vu doppia because V is just 'v', right? |
| So vu doppia, double vu, like in 'wow!' So, wow comes from English and it is pronounced as in English. While for 'wafer', for example, it comes from German and that's how they pronounce it, it stays as wafer. It makes sense, right? |
| Then we have X |
| Xilofono. |
| Ex-ragazzo, ex-boyfriend. |
| And finally Y. |
| It is the only one that is maybe the hardest to say: 'ipsilon', 'ip-silon'. But it is pronounced as in a word, 'ipsilon'. Just like 'yogurt'. |
| I hope this video was helpful and that you can practice your Italian pronunciation. Remember: ramarro marrone. |
| Thank you for watching. Remember to like and subscribe. I'll see you soon! Ciao ciao. Bye bye. |
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