Talk:Italian/Introduction/Pronunciation

Untitled
The Italian "R" is always rolled, even when the lenght of the sound is short and therefore the rolling hardly noticeable. it:Utente:Paginazero not logged --80.180.184.28 12:31, 19 Mar 2005 (UTC)

I'm not a native Italian speaker, but when I hear recordings of the simple Italian "r" being pronounced, it usually sounds like a tap rather than a trill. For example: http://www.askoxford.com/languages/it/toi_italian/pronunciation/?view=uk, http://academic.brooklyn.cuny.edu/modlang/carasi/site/pronuncia/pronuncia.html , http://italian.about.com/library/fare/blfareindex02.htm. --The Lazar 06:59, 13 August 2006 (UTC)

Vowels
Why does it keep saying that "a" is pronounced like the "a" in "father? Isn't it /a/ and not /ɑ/?

Supevan (discuss • contribs) 21:00, 19 March 2017 (UTC)

Pronounciation page.
I rewrote it in its entirety because the first edition confused me more than anything when I took a look and wasn't very well-formatted(not that this one is). As I am not a native Italian speaker(I am however proficient), please be on the lookout for any errors. Thanks!

--Kundash 23:12, 15 December 2005 (UTC)

A big mistake
I corrected all the wrong prononunciations of the vowels: long vowels (like "ei" in "weird" in English) do NOT exist in italian! Vowels are ALL short, always. Neither are letters like "t" or "r", however. It's impossible to pronounce [pit:sa], how do you pronounce a long "t"? Letters like "t", "r", "f" etc. are simply doubled: ['pittsa] (pizza), ['rosso] (rosso), [ven'totto] (ventotto), etc.

I am a native speaker, and I'm a phonetician, so I know what I'm talking about :)

--User:Molo

Q
"It is used only, but not always, when followed by approximant u. "

Huh? Only, but not always? How does that work? - Elin

't' as in "treasure"
Using the 't' in "treasure" as an example seems odd, since I pronounce that word as "chrezhr", with no 't' sound at all. Unless, of course, you really do mean the 'ch' sound (which from my research appears not to be the case), but either way it's a rather ambiguous example. (I'm refraining from editing because I don't know which sound I should make a better example for)

farmacia has three syllables, not four.
Under the pronunciation for the letter 'f' (and again under 'i'), the example is 'farmacia', and the pronunciation given is phar.MAH.chee.ah: a typical English-speaker mistake. The correct pronunciation would be something like phar.MAH.chah (far'mat͡ʃa). In Italian, an 'i' is used in writing to "soften" a 'c' or 'g' before an 'a', 'o', or 'u'; the counterpart to using an 'h' to "harden" a 'c' or 'g' before 'e' and 'i'. The 'i' in question is part of a consonant digraph, and not a separate vowel.


 * Actually, you are wrong. Go to any standard Italian dictionary or pronunciation guide (such as Treccani, or Forvo, or DOP, etc.) This word is a big exception to the rule that the i is silent in -cia.

Examples for E
I really think the section about E could be clarified. Perhaps list one or two words that are much more common than sempre, such as presto or ecco or bene. Newcomers (and observers) to Italian are more apt to be familiar with the pronunciation of the suggested words than they will of sempre.

In addition, put in an example or two of a closed e, such as credo or ella or che.

Also, change the order of the minimal pairs so that they match the order of the first sentence under E.

Sp3lly (discuss • contribs) 05:39, 24 March 2015 (UTC)