Lesson 1: The Italian Alphabet and Pronunciation (with Audio)

By Rossana Pazzaglia, native Italian teacher with a CEDILS certification in teaching Italian to foreigners (Ca’ Foscari University of Venice) · Updated 19 October 2026

Buongiorno! I’m Rossana, and this is the first lesson of my free A1 grammar course. We start from the sounds, because once you can say them, reading and spelling become much easier. I explain the rules in English and we practise in Italian. And please don’t worry about mistakes: they are part of the lesson.

Contents

• Video lesson
• The 21 letters, with audio
• Key pronunciation rules
• Vowels
• Double consonants
• Stress and written accents
• Where spelling is not enough
• Tips for German and French speakers
• Practice

Watch the video lesson

The Italian alphabet: 21 letters

The traditional Italian alphabet is shorter than the English one. It has 21 letters: 5 vowels and 16 consonants.

Letter	Name (Pronunciation)	Example
A	Ah	Amore (Love)
B	Bee	Bene (Well)
C	Chee	Ciao (Hi/Bye)
D	Dee	Donna (Woman)
E	Eh	Elenco (List)
F	Eff-eh	Fame (Hunger)
G	Jee	Gatto (Cat)
H	Ak-ka	Hotel (Silent!)
I	Ee	Italia (Italy)
L	Ell-eh	Libro (Book)
M	Emm-eh	Mano (Hand)
N	Enn-eh	Nome (Name)
O	Oh	Ora (Hour)
P	Pee	Pane (Bread)
Q	Koo	Quadro (Painting)
R	Err-eh	Roma (Rome)
S	Ess-eh	Sole (Sun)
T	Tee	Tavolo (Table)
U	Oo	Uscita (Exit)
V	Vee/Voo	Vino (Wine)
Z	Dzeh-ta	Zucchine (Zucchini)

And J, K, W, X, Y? They are not counted among the 21 letters. You will meet them in words of foreign origin (jeans, whisky, taxi), in foreign names and, sometimes, for a deliberately “exotic” effect. Their names are i lunga (J), cappa (K), doppia vu (W), ics (X) and ipsilon (Y).

Listen, read and repeat:

Show the audio transcript

• A si pronuncia a come Amore
• B si pronuncia bi come Bene
• C si pronuncia ci come Ciao
• D si pronuncia di come Donna
• E si pronuncia e come Elenco
• F si pronuncia effe come Fame
• G si pronuncia gi come Gatto
• H si pronuncia acca come Hotel
• I si pronuncia i come Italia
• L si pronuncia elle come Libro
• M si pronuncia emme come Mano
• N si pronuncia enne come Nome
• O si pronuncia o come Ora
• P si pronuncia pi come Pane
• Q si pronuncia cu come Quadro
• R si pronuncia erre come Roma
• S si pronuncia esse come Sole
• T si pronuncia ti come Tavolo
• U si pronuncia u come Uscita
• V si pronuncia vi come Vino
• Z si pronuncia zeta come Zucchine

Key pronunciation rules

Italian spelling is largely phonetic: compared with English or French, there are far fewer surprises between how a word is written and how it sounds. As the Treccani encyclopedia puts it, the differences between spelling and pronunciation are rather limited. They exist, though, and I explain them further down. First, the few “tricky” consonants.

The “C” and “G” rule

The sound of C and G changes depending on the letter that follows them.

• Hard sound: before A, O, U, or before H + E/I.
  • C sounds like “K”: casa (house), che (what).
  • G sounds like “G” in “go”: gatto (cat), ghetto.
• Soft sound: before E or I.
  • C sounds like “ch” in “cheese”: ciao, cena (dinner).
  • G sounds like “j” in “joy”: giro (tour), gelato.

The silent “H”

In Italian words the letter H is never pronounced. Its main job is to keep C and G hard before E or I:

• spaghetti: the H makes the G hard;
• chitarra (guitar): sounds like “kee-TAR-ra”.

GLI and GN

• GN sounds like the “ny” in “canyon”: gnocchi, sogno (dream).
• GLI is a soft, liquid L: press the middle of your tongue against the roof of your mouth. It is close to the “lli” in “million”: famiglia (family), figlio (son).

Treccani notes that these two sounds are among the hardest for foreign learners, because many languages don’t have them. If they feel strange at first, that’s completely normal.

Vowels (le vocali)

Unlike English, Italian vowels are short and clear, and they never glide into another sound:

• A: “ah” (as in father)
• E: “eh” (as in egg)
• I: “ee” (as in meet)
• O: “oh” (as in orange)
• U: “oo” (as in boot)

Open and closed E and O. The same letter can have two sounds, as in pésca (fishing) and pèsca (peach), or pòrta and sóle. The difference changes from region to region, and in some regions (Veneto, Sicily and Sardinia, for example) only one sound is used. For a beginner this is not a problem: use one clear sound and you will be understood.

Double consonants (le doppie): small difference, big meaning

When you see a double letter, as in pizza or mamma, hold that sound a little longer, like an extra beat. Treccani confirms that double consonants are pronounced with more energy and for a longer time, and that they change the meaning of words:

• caro (dear) / carro (cart)
• cane (dog) / canne (canes)
• pala (shovel) / palla (ball)
• note (notes) / notte (night)

A curious detail: even many Italians from the north don’t always lengthen double consonants. Treccani notes that in northern regional accents the length is often reduced to the consonants that are written double. If your first language is German or French, record yourself and compare your voice with the audio.

Stress and written accents

Every Italian word has one stressed syllable, pronounced a little louder and longer. In mattina the stress is on ti; in telefono it is on le. The important point for reading: Italian writes the accent only in some cases. According to the Treccani grammar, the written accent is obligatory:

• on words of two or more syllables stressed on the last syllable: città, caffè, perché, virtù, però;
• on some one-syllable words that could be misread, like più, può, già;
• on some one-syllable words that must be told apart from a twin without accent: è (is) / e (and), sì (yes) / si (reflexive pronoun), là (there) / la (the).

In all other words the stress is not marked, so you learn it by listening. A small trick: whenever you learn a new word, say it aloud and clap on the stressed syllable.

Where spelling is not enough

You don’t need to master these points in lesson 1, but it is good to know they exist. The Treccani Encyclopedia of Italian points out that spelling does not show them:

• S between two vowels. It can sound like an English “s” or like a “z” (as in rose). In the north it is voiced (“z”), in the centre-south voiceless (“s”); in Tuscany it depends on the word. The spelling doesn’t tell you which.
• Z: “ts” or “dz”. The letter Z has two sounds: voiceless “ts” (pizza, grazie) and voiced “dz” (zero, zanzara). At the beginning of a word most Italians today use the voiced “dz”: that’s why zucchero and zucchine usually start with “dz”, even though the traditional Tuscan pronunciation has “ts”.
• Regional accents. Italian has no single standard spoken pronunciation: Treccani speaks of at least twenty different sound systems, more or less regional. A speaker from Milan and one from Naples sound different, and both speak correct Italian.

Tips for German and French speakers

Many of my students in Switzerland speak German or French. These are the points where I most often hear mistakes:

• CH and GH are always hard. Che is “ke”, nothing like the German ch. Chiesa (church) starts with a “k” sound.
• U is “oo”. French speakers should avoid the rounded French “u”: uno and tutto have the sound of French ou.
• Z is not always the German z. In pizza and grazie you hear “ts”, which German speakers find easy. But in zero, zanzara and, for most speakers, zucchero, you hear a voiced “dz”. Learn each word by listening.
• Don’t drop the final vowel. Italian words almost always end in a vowel that must be heard: grande, not “grand”.

Practice

1. Read aloud, following the rules above, then check with the audio:

1. Gelato (soft G)
2. Chitarra (hard C because of the H)
3. Bagno (the GN sound)
4. Zucchero (hard C + double C)

2. Spell it the Italian way. Spell your first name, your surname and your city aloud, using the Italian letter names (erre, o, emme, a for Roma). It’s the most useful real-life exercise of this lesson: you’ll need it on the phone, at a hotel desk or at the doctor’s.

3. Hard or soft? Say whether the C or G is hard or soft: cena, gatto, chiave, giro, ghiaccio, cuore.

Show the answers to exercise 3

cena: soft · gatto: hard · chiave: hard (CH) · giro: soft · ghiaccio: hard GH, then soft CC before I · cuore: hard

How to study this lesson (also with dyslexia)

• Study 10 minutes a day instead of one long session. Short and frequent practice works better.
• Listen to the audio first, then read the letters. Sound first, writing second helps many learners with reading difficulties.
• Learn five letters at a time, each with its example word and a picture. Use colours: for instance, blue for vowels and orange for tricky consonants.
• Repeat the spelling exercise with the names of your family and friends.

Sources

• Treccani, Enciclopedia dell’Italiano: “Alfabeto” (accessed 16 October 2026)
• Treccani, Enciclopedia dell’Italiano: “Pronuncia” by Silvia Calamai (accessed 19 October 2026)
• Treccani, Enciclopedia dell’Italiano: “Doppie, lettere” (accessed 16 October 2026)
• Treccani, La grammatica italiana: “Accento” (accessed 16 October 2026)

Continue the course

• Lesson 0: introduction to the free A1 grammar course
• Lesson 2: gender and number of nouns
• Lesson 3: definite and indefinite articles
• Italian greetings: ciao, salve, buongiorno

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