Learn more about the Italian alphabet
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Intro |
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| Michael: Is the Italian alphabet the same as the English alphabet? |
| Ofelia: And if not, what are the differences? |
| Michael: At ItalianPod101.com, we hear these questions often. |
| In the following situation, Marta Marino, a kindergartener, is studying the alphabet with her mom, Alessia Marino. She sees an unfamiliar letter and asks, |
| "What letter is [this]?" |
| Marta Marino: Che lettera è? |
| Dialogue |
| Marta Marino: Che lettera è? |
| Alessia Marino: È o con un accento (ò). |
| Michael: Once more with the English translation. |
| Marta Marino: Che lettera è? |
| Michael: "What letter is [this]? |
| Alessia Marino: È o con un accento (ò). |
| Michael: "It's o with an accent (ò )." |
Lesson focus |
| Michael: The Italian language uses the Latin alphabet. It has a total of 5 "vowels," or |
| Ofelia: vocali, |
| Michael: and 16 "consonants," or |
| Ofelia: consonanti. |
| Michael: Additionally, there are also two main diacritics: the acute accent, |
| Ofelia: accento acuto, |
| Michael: and the grave accent, |
| Ofelia: accento grave. |
| Michael: In Italian, the accented syllable can vary. It is often the second-to-last syllable, as in |
| Ofelia: amico, |
| Michael: meaning "friend," but is sometimes the third-to-last syllable, as in |
| Ofelia: telefono, |
| Michael: meaning "telephone," and yet other times still, the fourth-to-last syllable. In any case, these words are never written with an accent. The use of accents is limited to words where the accent is on the last syllable, as in |
| Ofelia: città, |
| Michael: meaning "city," or |
| Ofelia: lunedì, |
| Michael: which means "Monday." The accent is also necessary on monosyllabic words that might be confused with other similar words. For example, the Italian word for "is," |
| Ofelia: è, |
| Michael: is an "e" with a grave accent, distinguishing it from the conjunction meaning "and," |
| Ofelia: e, |
| Michael: which is also an "e" but without an accent. |
| It's worth remembering that the acute accent is found only on "e" or "o," when indicating a closed sound, as in the word meaning "why," |
| Ofelia: perché. |
| Michael: Thus, overall, the Italian alphabet is very similar to the English one, but it's not exactly the same. Apart from the accents that we've just introduced, the main difference is that Italian doesn't have the letters J, K, W, X and Y, |
| Ofelia: J (gei), K (cappa), W (doppia vu), X (ics), Y (ipsilon). |
| Michael: You can still find them, but they are only used in loanwords, such as |
| Ofelia: jazz, |
| Michael: which means "jazz." |
| Before we go, it's worth mentioning some facts about the letter H, |
| Ofelia: H (acca). |
| Michael: In Italian, this letter is completely silent, even when used in a loanword, such as |
| Ofelia: hotel, |
| Michael: which means "hotel." |
| The letter H is also used to distinguish the hard sounds of the letters C and G before a vowel. Like in the proper noun |
| Ofelia: Chiara |
| Michael: which is often mispronounced as Chiara by native English speakers. |
| Additionally, the letter H is used to distinguish some forms of the verb "to have" from some homophones. For example, "you have" is |
| Ofelia: hai |
| Michael: written as h-a-i to distinguish it from the compound preposition meaning "to the," which is written as a-i, but is pronounced the same way, |
| Ofelia: ai. |
Outro |
| Michael: Do you have any more questions? We're here to answer them! |
| Ofelia: A presto! |
| Michael: See you soon! |
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