Italian/Grammar/Pronunciation and alphabet

see also Italian/Introduction/Pronunciation

Italian Alphabet and Sounds
The Italian alphabet is identical to the English one but the sound of certain letters is different. Double letters sound stronger and more stressed than single ones. Every letter or sound is represented in one unique way, and every letter is always read in the same way, with the exception of ‘’c’’ and ‘’g’’ whose pronunciation depends on following vowel (similarly to English) and ‘’s’’ and ‘’z’’ that can be both pronounced voiced or not.


 * Since J, K, W, X and Y are not originally "Italian" letters (since they only appear in foreign words), they are pronounced exactly as in English. J used to be an "Italian" letter, but was officially removed from the alphabet in around the early 20th century. X is a common letter in Sicilian language words derived from Greek. Thus, when certain toponyms and family names are rendered in Italian, they preserve the X. Examples include Bettino Craxi, or Sant'Angelo Muxaro. In these examples, the X is pronounced similar to English KS.

Particular phonemes
There are, however, digraphs/trigraphs that have their own particular phonemes:

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Italià/Pronunciació i alfabet Italienisch/ Aussprache Italiano/Pronunciación y alfabeto Italiano/Fonologia