I understand that in Italian the letter "e" can make two different vowel sounds:
- [ɛ] like the e in bet
- [e] like the a in chaos
Recently, I was caught off guard by an Italian song where the singer sang "vedo". Since I had learned to pronounce it as [vedo], I was surprised to hear it sung as [vɛdo] (which is correct?).
The rules I learned only pertained to particular conjugation endings like:
Imperfect -ERE rimanevo | rimanɛvamo ————————————————————— rimanevi | rimanɛvate ————————————————————— rimaneva | rimanevano We will eat: mangɛrɛmo We would eat: mangɛremmo
When encountering new words, are there any rules of thumb for figuring out which sound to use?