Professor Dave again, let’s wrap up our discussion of consonants.
We just learned about a few aspects of Italian phonetics that may be tricky for someone new
to the language, especially rules dealing with the letters C and G, and the letter combinations
GL and GN.
Let’s look at two more interesting letters, S and Z.
In Italian, the letter S has a couple of different sounds.
It’s difficult to list all of the specific pronunciations, but we can at least go over
a few guidelines now.
First, the letter S can sometimes be voiceless, which means that it is pronounced without
vibrating the vocal cords.
An example in English would be the S in the word house.
Similar pronunciations in Italian include the following.
Typically, when this is the case, the S is at the beginning of the word, but there are
exceptions, like the S in insalata.
By contrast, the letter S is usually voiced when found between vowels, or before certain
consonants.
This means the vocal cords will vibrate, like when pronouncing the word music.
Here are a few examples.
Note that in this word, the first S is voiceless, and the second one is voiced, so you can really
hear the difference.
Not too bad so far, right?
Unfortunately things get more complicated when S is followed by the letter C. Essentially,
in such a case, the S sound will need to comply with the rules for that particular instance
of the letter C, which is determined by the vowel found after the C.
If SC is followed by A, O, or U, the C is hard, and the S will sound the way it does
in the word task.
Examples of this include the following.
Instead, if the
SC is followed by E or I, the C must be soft, and the S will sound the way it does in the
word fish.
That will sound like this.
Lastly, if S is followed by CH, which is quite common, the S will sound the way it does in
the word risk.
This last word has a Z in it, so let’s learn exactly how Z’s work.
In Italian, the letter Z is like the S, it can have a voiceless sound, and a voiced sound.
When it is voiceless, it kind of sounds as though it is a TS that is being pronounced,
like in the following.
Instead, when the Z is voiced, it sounds more like a DZ that is being pronounced, like in
these words.
To make this sound, begin to press the tongue to the roof of the mouth as though you will
pronounce the letter D, and while turning the syllable into a Z sound, slowly push it out.
The last thing we need to discuss is double consonants.
These are extremely important in Italian, as the Italian language reads what it writes
and writes what it hears.
If a word in Italian contains a double consonant, you will hear it, and consequently you will
need to write it that way.
English doesn’t really work like this.
Think of the word tomorrow.
It has one M and two R’s.
But this word is frequently misspelled, sometimes with two M’s or one R, or both.
One reason for these common mistakes is that all of these variations are more or less phonetically
identical.
In Italian, this would never happen, because double consonants are pronounced very clearly,
and more forcefully, so the double consonant sound is unmistakably heard.
When you see a double consonant, the consonant sound can be emphasized by slightly shortening
the time spent on the preceding vowel, and then lingering on the consonant sound for
an extra moment before finishing it off.
Here are some examples of pairs of words where the only difference between them is that a
consonant has been doubled.
These are all real words, with unrelated meanings.
And that’s pretty much all there is to it.
If you can master these subtle differences in the pronunciation of C, G, S, Z, and double
consonants, you will be well on your way to mastering the Italian language.