The vowels Just as in English there are five Italian vowels: a, e, i, o and u. The letters a, i and u have a single sound, the letters e and o however have two sounds which are referred to as either open or closed. By making reference to standard English words we can provided examples of how the vowels actually sound in reality. Here are the examples: a as in ‘cat’, ‘mat’ or ‘fat’ ‘Mano’ means ‘hand’. e as in ‘fed’ or ‘sled’ ‘Fetta’ means ‘slice’ as in ‘poem’ ‘Sella’ means ‘saddle’ i as in ‘me’ or ‘meet’ ‘Giubbino’ means ‘light jacket’ o as in ‘pot’ or ‘slot’ ‘Rotto’ means ‘brocken’ as in ‘code’ ‘Sono’ means ‘I am’ and ‘they are’ u as in the English ‘double o’ ‘Crudo’ means ‘raw’ or ‘crude’ (food, mood, cool or tool) Italian consonants are for the most part sounded just as in English, there are however some exceptions which are as follows: h The letter ‘h’ is not sounded in Italian, instead it is used to modify the letters ‘c’ and ‘g’. Even with imported words such as ‘hobby’ the letter ‘h’ is not sounded thus, as regards the pronunciation of the word ‘hobby’ we have the equivalent of ‘obby’. c Before the letters ‘i’ and ‘e’ the letter ‘c’ is pronounced exactly like ‘ch’ in English. So then we have words like, ‘Certo’ (certainly) and ‘Cinema’ (cinema) – remember to pronounce cinema as chinema. The letter ‘c’ in combination with either ‘e’ or ‘i’ is know as a ‘soft c’. When the letter ‘c’ is instead followed by any other letter it is know as a ‘hard c’ and sounding like the English letter ‘k’. For example we have ‘Cane’ which means dog and ‘Cotto’ which means cooked. ch The combination of ‘c’ and ‘h’ only occurs when ‘ch’ is followed by either ‘i’ or ‘e’, serving thus to separate them and therefore modify the combined sound. Some examples should make this clear: ‘Chi’ means ‘who’, but if it where not for the separating ‘h’ we would have ‘ci’, which depending on context means either ‘us’ or ‘there’ or ‘of it / of them’. ‘China’ means ‘slope’ or ‘descent’, ‘Cina’ on the hand is the spelling of the country name - China. The concept of noun gender doesn’t exist in English and as such presents a completely new set of problems to the student of Italian. Fortunately there are only two forms, Masculine and Feminine (maschile and feminile). How can we know whether a noun is masculine or feminine? The answer is to observe the final letter of the word (desinenza). There are three final letter possibilities ‘o’, ‘a’ and ‘e’. It would be very helpful to be able to say that all nouns ending in ‘o’ are masculine and that all nouns ending in ‘a’ are feminine, unfortunately this isn’t the case. The good news is however that it is generally the case. So then some examples: ‘Forno’ means ‘oven’ Masculine ‘Pavimento’ means ‘floor’ Masculine ‘Ufficio’ means ‘office’ Masculine ‘Olio’ means ‘oil’ Masculine ‘Letto’ means ‘bed’ Masculine ‘Governo’ means ‘government’ Masculine ‘Francobollo’ means ‘stamp’ Masculine ‘Conto’ means ‘bill’ Masculine ‘Legno’ means ‘wood’ Masculine ‘Oro’ means ‘gold’ Masculine ‘Stagno means ‘pond’ Masculine ‘Zoo’ means ‘zoo’ Masculine ‘Verdura’ means ‘vegetable Feminine ‘Settimana’ means ‘week’ Feminine ‘Cravatta’ means ‘tie’ Feminine ‘Vacanza’ means ‘holiday’ Feminine ‘Ricevuta’ means ‘receipt’ Feminine ‘Lingua’ means ‘tongue’ Feminine ‘Camicia’ means ‘shirt’ Feminine ‘Acqua’ means ‘water’ Feminine ‘Doccia’ means ‘shower’ Feminine ‘Ora’ means ‘hour’ Feminine ‘Animale’ means ‘animal’ Masculine ‘Glottide’ means ‘glottis’ Feminine ‘Aspirapolvere’ means ‘vacuum cleaner’ Masculine ‘Pelle’ means ‘leather’ Feminine ‘Bicchiere’ means ‘glass’ Masculine ‘Stazione’ means ‘station’ Feminine ‘Dottore’ means ‘doctor’ Masculine ‘Estate’ means ‘summer’ Feminine ‘Nome’ means ‘name’ Masculine ‘Madre’ means ‘mother’ Feminine ‘Pane’ means ‘bread’ Masculine We can intimate from this list that when a noun ends in ‘o’ it’s more than likely masculine and that when a noun ends in ‘a’ it’s more than feminine but what about those nouns that end in ‘e’? Clearly such nouns can be either masculine or feminine. All such words must simply be learnt by wrote. Here we can notice an interesting problem for the student learning Italian. Consider the sentence, ‘Il direttore ama la cameriera.’. The word ‘direttore’ (director) is preceded by the ‘Il’ form of the definite article and therefore allows us to immediately picture a male director. The word ‘ama’ comes from the third person singular of the verb ‘amare’ which means ‘to love’ – in this instance it means that he - the director - loves something or someone. What or whom does the doctor love? He loves, ‘la cameriera’, the waitress (the word for waiter is ‘cameriere’. So far so good. Now consider this sentence, ‘L’animale cerca l’abete.’. Is the animal male or female and of what gender is an ‘abete’? From the sentence given we simply cannot say, it could be a male mouse or a female kangaroo the ‘abate’ on the other hand refers to something masculine - a fir tree - but only experience can tell us this. Interestingly now that we know that ‘abete’ is a type of tree we also know that the word ‘abete’ can’t be anything but masculine. This is simply because all trees in Italian are masculine, further, all fruits are feminine. And so we have for example: L’arancio Orange tree Masculine L’arancia Orange (fruit) Feminine Il melo Apple tree Masculine La mela Apple (fruit) Feminine Il pesco Peach tree Masculine La pesca Peach (fruit) Feminine Il noce Walnut tree Masculine La noce Walnut (fruit) Feminine L’albicocco Apricot tree Masculine L’albicocca Apricot (fruit) Feminine Il pero Pear tree Masculine La pera Pear (fruit) Feminine Exceptions to the rule… La quercia Oak tree Feminine La ghianda Acorn Feminine As regards all of the nouns that end in ‘e’ there are some tips and tricks available to help us to remember whether they’re masculine or feminine. Firstly, if in doubt, assume that it’s masculine – Italian is a male orientated language and most words ending in ‘e’ are indeed masculine. Secondly, one way of learning the gender of new words is to develop memory games. Consider a new word to our vocabulary, ‘estate’ meaning summer. This word ends in ‘e’ and so the first thing to do in deciding its gender it to examine its definite article. Unfortunately however, this particular word begins with a vowel which means that the definite article is l’ so then, neither the ending nor the definite article can tell us anything about the gender of the word. So what can we do? Well one thing we can do is to invent a memory aid. For example, the four seasons are: Spring ‘La primavera’ Feminine Summer ‘L’estate’ Feminine Autumn ‘l’autunno’ Masculine Winter ‘L’inverno’ Masculine