Reading and Writing

As has already been said spelling in Italian makes sense, unlike in English. Let's learn the English numbers! One, two, three ... the spelling of the first two gives you almost no idea how to pronounce the words. Italian is not like this. If you use the rules below you can know how to pronounce a word just from it's spelling. Should not any intelligent language be like that!

Vowels	Pronounced as the highlight in ...
a	apple
e	set
i	sheep
o	orange
u	soon

Consonants	Pronounced as the highlight in ...
ch	kettle	tabacchi, chiesa, chilometro, chiara
ce ci	check	centro, cinema, cioccolato
ca co cu	cat	cane, cotto, curioso

gh	get	ghiaccio, laghi
ge gi	jet	gelato, gennaio, giorno, giacca
ga go gu	get	gatto, ago, guardare
gli{_,a,e,i,o,u}	yeast	famiglia, maglietta, foniglio
gn	canyon	gnocchi, cognome

sce sci	ship	scena, scendere, lasciare, scienza

z	dz or ts	zucchini, zucchero, mezzo, zia

And the rest are as you would expect in English so that's it. There is some pattern her in that c, g and sc both soften before e and i to become like English "ch", "j" and "sh" but are otherwise they sound like English "k","g" and "?????".

Italian - Pronunciation

Reading and Writing