h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

http://www.bbc.co.uk/h2g2/guide/A599655

Ever feel stumped when confronted with words like tagliatelle, ciabatta and mascarpone? (Not to mention chianti). Here's a guide to pronouncing Italian for English speakers.

This is great because it's so useful and easy to understand!

There was only one bit that I found confusing:
"The one exception to the rule is i after c or g."

I think you need to go on and explain how the rule changes - maybe I'm just being stupid but I didn't find an explanation.

Liz

This article, I think, often oversimplifies the Italian language and at times makes some pretty nasty errors.
First of all the letter 'a' is pronounced as it is in father, not as it is in cat. I suppose it's possible that you pronounce cat so it rhymes with cot, in which case the example would be inherently correct, though ambiguous.
You say that the Italian vowels have only one pronunciation each, but that is absolutely not the case. The letters 'e' and 'o' both have second ones as well. As far as 'e' is concerned, it is pronounced like the 'ay' in day in some cases (like pere), but in most, I believe - like letto - the 'e' is pronounced as it is in get. In oggi, the 'o' is pronounced as it is in strong, but in nome the 'o' is as it is in home.
When you write that there 'are no j, k, q, w, x, y in Italian', you are mistaken. There didn't used to be those letters (except 'q', and I'll get to that), but thanks to the English language Italians now use such words as jazz, karatè, weekend, xilofono and yoghurt.
'Q' is a different story altogether and so far as I know it has always been part of the alphabet, as I can think of a number of real, honest-to-God Italian words which use it, including quando, questo and qualche - those are most definitely not foreign words which have only recently become a part of the language.
In addition, you should add the combination 'sc' somewhere to the list, which can be pronounced like 'sk', as in scuola, or like 'sh', as in sceneggiatura and uscire.

Something more. You should almost always accentuate the last but one syllable.

Other words with a q: quarto, cinque, and much more numbers in italian.

Thanks for that, MCB. I know I am simplifying, but this is intended to be a guide for English speakers, not for people learning the language.

I am not worried about English words imported into Italian. There is no problem for English people pronouncing those. So I think I am still right about j, k, w, x and y. I wasn't sure about q, but was sure someone would point it out if I was wrong. I always get confused between Latin and Italian. I knew most Latin q words had changed to c, but I forgot there were still a few left.

As for the pronunciation of the letter a, it is almost impossible to find a way of describing the correct pronunciation, because a is pronounced differently in different English dialects. An Italian a is almost exactly the same as the way I, with my Dublin accent, pronounce cat, but this is different from the way an American or a Southern English person would say them. I'll have to think about this for a bit. Perhaps I can come up with an acceptable alternative.

I've done some more research and made one or two minor changes:

1. the bit about i after c or g is explained better now, Liz.

2. q has been added as a genuine Italian letter.

3. I've added sc in the c and g section.

4. I've added a footnote explaining that there are two pronunciations for e and o, but since these are regional variations, they can be safely ignored.

I stand by my statement that there are no j,k,w,x and y in Italian.

I stand by my pronunciation of a as in cat and I have added apple as another example. This is in agreement with the Collins Italian Pocket Dictionary. The sounds are not the same, but they are close and there is unlikely to be a better example.

HI
Well I always tried to make friends learn how to read Italian and it didn't seem so easy, so I think you did a good jobe there

I've been thinking about the W,Y,J and X thing for a while... I mean, there are Italian words with them (I'm thinking about xenofobo, for example) but they all come from Latin or Greek so probably they're not "pure Italian". Oh well you can decide that

Just one thing, about the "gl" = "ly". I suppose this is the closer example one can find, and it's not wrong, meaning that, if a non-Italian says it, everyone will understand. But, just to be precise, that's not the real sound: thought most Italians say "ly", the real sound is slightly different. Unfortunately there's no English sound for that, and if you know the Phonetic Transcription it's a lambda. But as I said, losts of Italians say "ly" too, thought it's considered a pronunciation mistake.

This is a good, informative entry. If you tidy up the layout, ie centre tables, have gaps below headers etc. it would look a lot better.

Grandad Ugg

There are gaps below the headers if you look at it in Alabaster. I'll leave that to the sub-editor, as there are probably guidelines. I'll see what I can do about alignment on the tables.

I've tidied the tables and fixed the headers so that it looks OK in Goo and Alabaster.

That's good - I understand it now!

Hi, Gnomon!

I'd definitely agree with MCB about the two different sounds for o and e - I think it would be wrong to describe them as just regional variations which can be ignored. The short e as in the English 'get' is definitely found in lots of Italian words - as far as I remember, the e before a double consonant should be that 'eh', not 'ay' sound:
vecchio, ecco, terra, mezzo, aspetta, and all those operatic names like Rigoletto and Violetta. I think your tagliatelle example should have that same 'eh'.

It's the same with the o: oggi, donna, notturno definitely have a short o as in 'got', not the longer o of 'caro nome'. 'Possono', like 'essere' has the two different sounds in the one word.

And wouldn't it perhaps be better to say that w, k, z etc are sometimes found in introduced words, but that since these are usually English the pronunciation should be obvious?


Azara

When I decided to opt for one pronunciation for e and o, I was going along with my (Collins Pocket) Italian Dictionary, and also Italian-speaking chorus masters who have taught me to sing in Italian. Both of these were obviously taking a simplified approach.

Is there any way to tell which of two e's or o's is in use in a word. Can you tell from looking at oggi or nome which o it uses, or is it just a question of learning it? My pronunciation guide will not be much use if it can't tell you how to pronounce the words.

I'll put in a note about j, x etc in imported words.

It is a simplification to say that there's only a single pronunciation per vowel, but it's not a harmful one. There isn't really an Italian equivalent to RP, nor is there any particular wish to create a uniform pronunciation. The two intonations of e and o only apply in certain parts of the country: if you went to Teramo, for example, you'd never hear a vowel sound resembling an e and if you went to Ascoli Piceno the letter o would seem to be missing from the local alphabet.

I'd keep it simple: it's beyond the means of an entry where you can use neither a phonetic alphabet nor sound files to get an English-speaker to sound like an Italian, so I'd stick to ensuring that your readers can pronounce words sufficiently well to be understood, which is what you're already doing.

I agree with the above statement that 'a' in italian is more like 'father' than 'apple'. Two more points came to me as I read the article.
Firstly, Italians tend to pronounce j and w the German way rather than the English way thus W.C. becomes vater and the Italian name Jacopo is pronounced Yacopo.
Also, I think the distinction between single and double letters is not neglibible, as you assert. At a restaurant ordering penne or telling a friend you're 20 years old, a mistake in pronunciaton could result in the waiter unzipping his trousers and your friend thinking you have 20 anuses.

The single or doubled consonants seem to distinguish between the long and short o's and e's. I still think it's worth putting in, since the shorter o or e is the one English speakers would be naturally inclined to use anyway, in words like penne or Nonna.

I don't think it would complicate the table too much to put in:
e normally ay as in day; before a doubled consonant eh as in get.
(I notice that you actually have spaghetti as spa-get-tee )
o normally between o in con and o in cone; before a doubled consonant o as in got.
Ricotta would be a good example if you want words commonly used in English.

Azara

OK.

I've put in two pronunciations for e and o:

e = ay before single consonant
e = as in get before double consonant
o = as in cone before single consonant
o = as in got before double consonant

I'm not too worried about j and w being pronounced as in German, so I've just said "the pronunciation should be obvious".

I have already said how to pronounce double consonants.

The entry is now finished.

Scouts, do your stuff!

Alright, but don't blame me when angry travellers track you down after getting a penis with tomato sauce when they thought they'd ordered penne al pomodoro.

OK. I'll just tell them where to stick same. (20 anuses were mentioned earlier)

It is confusing to have pronouncing stuff because all our letters are very variable...
I am learning Italian and doing pretty badly, especially confusing I find is the fact that "ch" for them is a soft c for us and hard c for them. I also do French at a much higher level than Italian so I often say my Italian with a French accent.
I can't roll my r's but I can make the French back-of-throat-gagging-noise