Learn three things about Italian pronunciation: how to deal with the letter -s, how to manage the pronunciation of diphthongs in Italian and how to handle an Italian hiatus
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| Laura: "Buongiorno a tutti!" "Hi, everyone!" |
| Marco: Marco here! Pronunciation Series Lesson 5 – Pronouncing the Letter "-s," Diphthongs, and the Hiatus |
| Marco: Hi, this is Marco, and I am joined here by Laura. |
| Laura: So we're progressing fast with our pronunciation lessons, isn't that so? |
| Marco: Yes, we can almost say anything we want now in Italian. |
| Laura: In this lesson, we are going to learn how we can pronounce the letter "-s" in the Italian language. |
| Marco: And how we say diphthongs and handle the hiatus. |
| Laura: Let's start with the letter "-s." |
| Marco: It's incredible how much impact this simple letter can have on the pronunciation of some words. |
| Laura: Well, let's see them together. |
| Marco: First of all, the letter "-s" can have two phonetic values. |
| Laura: Voiced and unvoiced. |
| Marco: The unvoiced "-s" [s] is the regular one from the English words "sport," "sky," "star," and so forth. |
| Laura: The voiced "-s" [z] is actually the sound [z] in English as we have in the words "zoo," "zone," "zip," and so forth. |
| Marco: Let's now take a practical look at the rules for the pronunciation of the letter "-s." |
| Laura: Let's start by taking a look at the letter "-s" plus "-a," "-e," "-i," "-o," and "-u." |
| Marco: In this case, the sound is unvoiced, as in… |
| Laura: "sale," [sa] |
| Marco: "salt" |
| Laura: "serpente," [se] |
| Marco: "snake" |
| Laura: "sole," [so] |
| Marco: "sun" |
| Laura: "superbo," [su] |
| Marco: "superb." Those were simple. |
| Laura: Yes, no problem at all. |
| Marco: Now, let's take a look at the letters "-l," "-r," "-m," and "-n" followed by "-s," also unvoiced. |
| Laura: "polso," [lso] |
| Marco: "wrist" |
| Laura: "università," [rsi] |
| Marco: "university" |
| Laura: "console," [nso] |
| Marco: "consul." |
| These were also pretty easy. |
| Laura: Yes, very easy. |
| Marco: Next, what do we have? |
| Laura: Now we have the letter "-s," plus "-c," "-f," "-p," "-q," and "-t." |
| Marco: The first word is… |
| Laura: "sconto," [sko-] |
| Marco: "discount" |
| Laura: "sforzo," [sfo-] |
| Marco: "effort" |
| Laura: "speranza," [spe-] |
| Marco: "hope" |
| Laura: "squadra," [skwa-] |
| Marco: "team" |
| Laura: and then "storia," [sto-] |
| Marco: "story." |
| Laura: This group was also fine, but in the next one we will see the voiced "-s." |
| Marco: Oh yes. Here, we have the letter "-s" followed by "-b," "-d," "-g," "-l," "-m," "-n," "-r," and "-v." |
| Laura: Shall we see some examples? |
| Marco: Yes! |
| Laura: "sbaglio," [zba] |
| Marco: "mistake," "error" |
| Laura: "sdraiarsi," [zdra] |
| Marco: "to lie down" |
| Laura: "sgridare," [zgri] |
| Marco: "to scold" |
| Laura: "slittare," [zlit] |
| Marco: "to skid" |
| Laura: "smemorato," [zme] |
| Marco: "forgetful" |
| Laura: "snello," [zne] |
| Marco: "thin" |
| Laura: "sradicare," [zra] |
| Marco: "eradicate," "uproot" |
| Laura: "svogliato," [zvo] |
| Marco: "halfhearted" |
| Laura: Those were quite a lot! |
| Marco: Oh yes, but we are nearly there, right? |
| Laura: Yes, just a little more. |
| Marco: Now we have the letter "-s" between vowels. |
| Laura: "casa," [aza] |
| Marco: "house," "home" |
| Laura: "cortese," [eze] |
| Marco: "gentle, " "courteous" |
| Laura: "fisica," [izi] |
| Marco: "physics" |
| Laura: That was short! |
| Marco: We now have one last situation to see. |
| Laura: What happens when the letter "-s" is doubled? |
| Marco: Let me think…I guess we say it with double the strength. |
| Laura: Yes, we say it with more emphasis, as in "cassa" |
| Marco: "crate," "cash desk" |
| Laura: "rosso" |
| Marco: "red" |
| Laura: "abisso" |
| Marco: "abyss" |
| Laura: Let's now take a look at diphthongs. |
| Marco: What are those? Is it something Zio Giacomo cooks? |
| Laura: Noooo! You haven't been paying attention! |
| Marco: "Scusami," "sorry!" |
| Laura: A diphthong is a juncture of either two identical consonants or two vowels within the same syllable. |
| Marco: Ahhh that was easy…well, sort of. How does this affect pronunciation? |
| Laura: The main characteristic of the vowel diphthong is that we pronounce it in one breath, and together both vowels lose their individual vocal characteristics, making a brand new sound. |
| Marco: "È magia!" "It's magic!" |
| Laura: No, it's just simple phonetics. And for people who like these things, the first sound in the diphthong becomes a semivowel because it loses a half of its vocal quality. |
| Marco: Are there any other rules that can help us out? |
| Laura: First of all, if "-i" is followed by "-a," "-e," "-u," or "-o," the result is "-ya," "-ye," "-yu," or "-yo." |
| Marco: That I can remember! |
| Laura: And if "-u" is followed by "-a," "-e," "-i," or "-o," we get "-wa," "-we," "-wi," or "-wo." |
| Marco: Anything else we should know? |
| Laura: There is a second case in which vowels are followed by "-i" or "-u"… |
| Marco: And what happens here? |
| Laura: "-a," "-e," "-u," or "-o" followed by "-i" becomes "-ai," "-ei," "-ui," or "-oi." |
| Marco: Okay. |
| Laura: And "-a" or "-e" followed by "-u" results in "-au" and "-eu." |
| Marco: Anything else? |
| Laura: We cannot break a diphthong into syllables. |
| Marco: Can we now see it in practice? |
| Laura: Sure we can. |
| Marco: What will we start with? |
| Laura: "-i" plus a vowel, as in "chiaro," [kya] |
| Marco: "clear" |
| Laura: "pieno," [pye] |
| Marco: "full" |
| Laura: "chiodo," [kyo] |
| Marco: "nail" |
| Laura: "piuma," [pyu] |
| Marco: "feather" |
| Laura: It seemed so difficult in theory, but it's rather easy in practice, right? |
| Marco: Well, yes, and also in this case, I guess the best is to just practice what you hear from native speakers. |
| Laura: Absolutely. Let's now take a look at "-u" plus a vowel. |
| Marco: The following examples should help. |
| Laura: "quando," [kwa] |
| Marco: "when" |
| Laura: "quello," [kwe] |
| Marco: "that" |
| Laura: "inguine," [gwi] |
| Marco: "groin" |
| Laura: "luogo," [lwo] |
| Marco: "place" |
| Laura: Now we have vowel plus "-i." |
| Marco: Do you have an example for us? |
| Laura: "zaino," [zai] |
| Marco: "rucksack" |
| Laura: "caleidoscopio," [lei] |
| Marco: "kaleidoscope" |
| Laura: "asteroide," [roi] |
| Marco: "asteroid" |
| Laura: "anguilla" [gui] |
| Marco: "eel" |
| Laura: And that does it for the diphthongs. |
| Marco: Are you sure there is no recipe with this name? |
| Laura: I'm pretty sure. |
| Marco: We are now going on hiatus. |
| Laura: What Marco means is that we are now going to take a look at the hiatus, or when there are two vowels close to each other and they both preserve their vocal quality. |
| Marco: In other words, they both keep their original sound, right? |
| Laura: Yes, exactly. |
| Marco: Let's see some examples then. |
| Laura: "boemo," [bo-e, mo] |
| Marco: "bohemian" |
| Laura: "creare," [cre-a-re] |
| Marco: "to create" |
| Laura: "eroe," [e-ro-e] |
| Marco: "hero" |
| Laura: "violino," [vi-o-li-no] |
| Marco: "violin" |
| Laura: As for the pronunciation, please keep your mouth open longer than usual. |
| Marco: Anything else before we go? |
| Laura: Yes, one last thing. In some cases, the case of hiatus can cause difficulties in communication. |
| Marco: For example? |
| Laura: If I say "Lo dà a Andrea." |
| Marco: "He will give it to Andrea." |
| Laura: At a fast speed, we get "Lo dàndrea." |
| Marco: That is difficult to understand. |
| Laura: Same as "Ci vanno Luca e Emilio." |
| Marco: "Luca and Emilio are going there." |
| Laura: At fast speed, it becomes "Ci vanno Luca Emilio." |
| Marco: So how can we avoid this? |
| Laura: We simply add the letter "-d" and we get..."Lo dà ad Andrea" and. |
| Marco: "Ci vanno Luca ed Emilio." |
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