17
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PrEndere but tenEre
Conventionally, people say that Italian verbs fall into three categories, or conjugations: those ending in -are, in -ere and in -ire. Those in -ere, however, correspond to two different conjugations ...
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13
votes
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Are there liaisons in Italian?
It is not a real liaison, but a phenomenon that is formalised most in prosody, for poems and song lyrics: it is called synaloepha (in Italian, sinalefe), and consists in having two consecutive ...
- 36k
13
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What accents/dialects are considered "standard Italian"?
Luciano Canepàri in his DiPI (Dizionario di Pronuncia Italiana) defines Tuscany, Umbria, Marche, Lazio and Rome as “regioni standardizzanti” (regions where a standard-like pronunciation of standard ...
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Cosa significa "bumpete"? È una parola piana o sdrucciola?
No. È un suono onomatopeico (https://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Onomatopea).
"Bump" anche nei fumetti indica di solito una collisione, o meglio il suono emesso a seguito di una caduta o un tonfo.
In ...
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12
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In spoken Italian, is there a standard way to encode the letters of words when there is too much noise and the words cannot be heard?
Your assignation is not standard (even if there is not an official standard): for instance, for M most people would pick Milano, and to connect a letter and a city name one often uses come (“D come ...
- 36k
9
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Stressed syllable
For a number of word endings the stress is predictable. For instance, all superlative forms in -issimo are “sdrucciole” (i.e., stressed on the third-from-last syllable): bellìssimo, velocìssimo and so ...
- 36k
8
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How is 'sii' supposed to be pronounced?
My ear as an Italian and, more verifiably, the pronunciation given in Migliorini, Tagliavini and Fiorelli's Dizionario d'ortografia e di pronunzia agree in saying that the correct way is the first one....
- 36k
8
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Tremosine sul Garda, pronuncia corretta
Il Dizionario d'ortografia e di pronunzia è utilissimo per questo tipo di dubbi. In particolare, conferma la pronuncia con l'accento tonico sulla “o” (e la “o” aperta) per Tremosine. Purtroppo il DOP ...
- 36k
8
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The use of the spellings -zz- vs. -z-
This isn't a complete answer, but while Googling to try to find out more, I came across the following explanation for why some speakers might think there is a difference in pronunciation:
The ...
- 408
8
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Pronunciation of "sincero" and "sinceramente"
I assume you are talking about the pronunciation of the E in the second syllable. The change from [ɛ] in [sinˈtʃɛro] to [e] in [sintʃeraˈmente] is completely regular and predictable, because "standard"...
- 408
8
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Why is gemination so common in Italian?
It is not a matter of syllabification, rather the doubling of the consonant indicates a different pronunciation.
It is perhaps hard at first for non native speakers to hear the difference, but ...
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7
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Pronuncia strana della "s" dopo una "r": un fenomeno romano o di tutta l'Italia?
Confermo empiricamente che a Roma (e, direi, almeno parte del Lazio) è un fenomeno piuttosto comune, ed è ben noto ai linguisti, insieme agli altri che caratterizzano il consonantismo dell'italiano di ...
- 36k
7
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Phonetic transcription dictionary
A good Italian pronunciation dictionary is
DOP, Dizionario d’ortografia e di pronunzia della RAI.
At this dictionary, you can see phonetic transcriptions and listen to the pronunciation of words.
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7
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Pronunciation of ce/ci in Rome
Yes, it is. Note that “ci”/“ce” is only pronounced like this after a vowel. So macello is pronounced /maʃel:o/, while cena or pancia are pronounced as in standard Italian.
This sound is sometimes ...
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7
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Sulla pronuncia del nome di Natalia Ginzburg
Io ho sempre sentito e detto “Natalìa Ginzburg”, ma questo non vorrebbe dire molto.
Quello che direi faccia testo è che lo pronunciano con l'accento sulla “i”:
il critico letterario Giulio Ferroni;
...
- 36k
6
votes
Any Italians pronouncing pèsca and pésca differently?
In Standard Italian they are indeed pronounced distinctly, but the distribution of open and closed vowels in Italian can vary greatly depending on the dialect (due to the influence of regional ...
- 856
6
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C'è qualche differenza di pronuncia della "s" tra "chiuso" e "frase"?
Nell'italiano standard (quello derivato dal fiorentino) la s sorda e quella sonora – cioè, nell'IPA, /s/ e /z/ – sono due fonemi diversi. Esistono infatti “coppie minime”, come per esempio “chie[s]e” (...
- 36k
6
votes
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When do I pronounce “i” in “sci-”?
Main law about exceptions (MLAE)
Every rule has its exceptions, including the main law about exceptions
You'll find several applications of the MLAE when dealing with grammar or orthography.
The ...
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6
votes
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Does R + vowel at starts of a word pronounce like RR?
In Standard Italian, in most cases, in a word beginning by “r” + vowel, the “r” is pronounced as a simple, non-geminate one.
The “most cases” include the word in isolation, the word preceded by a ...
- 36k
6
votes
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The orthography of gi and ci
In Italian there are no hard and fast rules about stress. Even native speakers sometimes (often?) get it wrong on unfamiliar words. The only way to find the correct position of the stress of any given ...
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6
votes
Are the pronunciations of "cie", "ce", "gie", "ge" the same when the letter "i" is used to soften?
If the i is unstressed (as in cielo), cie/ce and gie/ge are pronounced the same. If it is stressed, though (as in astrologia, astrologie and likewise e.g. farmacia, farmacie), it is pronounced even ...
- 531
5
votes
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Phonology: what is the most useful list of Italian minimal pairs?
A complete set of minimal pairs for every possible pair of phonemes is quite sizeable.
I copy here the one from Serianni's Italiano (p. 4) for vowels:
i e ɛ a ɔ o u
e ...
- 36k
5
votes
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Are certain single vowel words merely dropped?
Disclaimer: I am just an armchair linguist and my only qualification here is being a native speaker of Italian with a mild interest in grammar and pronunciation.
Usually in spoken Italian when there ...
- 11.7k
5
votes
Why is Paris called Parigi in Italian?
The name for Paris came from the ancient Latin term used by the Romans to call an earlier settlement, Lutetia Parisorum or "Lutetia of the Parisii".
The Parisii were Celtic Iron Age people who ...
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5
votes
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The correct pronunciation of the "ʎʎ" sound in IPA
First, no /l/ sound is present. The tip of the tongue for /ʎ/ is positioned like for /l/, but the jaw is raised so the sides of the tongue are pressed between the teeth.
There is no implicit or ...
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5
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What's the origin of /ʎ/ sound of "gli"?
Serianni's Italiano, speaking of palatal sounds in Italian and why they are always geminated between vowels (/ʎʎ/, /ɲɲ/ and /ʃʃ/), explains (section I.47):
Le ragioni della pronuncia intensa di ...
- 36k
5
votes
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Perché in Turandot la Cina è chiamata China?
Ho trovato in questo post sul forum OperaClick una domanda simile alla tua:
Turandot: China (/ˈki.na/) oppure Cina (/ˈʧi.na/)?
Gentili esperti, un
quesito a cui non ho potuto dare risposta, ...
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5
votes
Why is gemination so common in Italian?
You have to distinguish between gemination in spelling and pronunciation.
French has a lot of geminated consonants in spelling, but none in pronunciation (except maybe at word boundaries, when a word ...
- 17.8k
5
votes
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Why is AC Milan's name emphasized on the first syllable, when the city's name is not?
As you can read anywhere, the football team was founded in December 1899 by a group of Englishmen and Italians as Milan Football & Cricket Club. It has been Milan since, except during the fascist ...
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Only top scored, non community-wiki answers of a minimum length are eligible