Hi, my name is Giovanna.

I have prepared for you a series of 5 minutes lessons that will

give you a little insight on the Italian language.

Before we go right into it, let me tell you a little bit about myself.
I originally come from Naples, Italy. All my family still lives there. By profession I am a
translator and interpreter and I speak 4 languages: French, Spanish, English and of course
Italian. You may imagine that I know something about the challenges of learning a new
language. So, I will try to use my experience to make these trips into the Italian language
as easy and fun as possible.

Today we will look into pronunciation. You are very well aware of the fact that letters
(also known as vowels and consonants) are pronounced differently in Italian and in
English. The secret to understand a language is listening and imitating the sounds as
correctly as possible to the best of your ability.

You may never leave your English accent behind. It does not matter. I still have my
Italian accent. The purpose of this exercise is to facilitate your learning and
understanding of the language.

I will start by showing some letters and I will tell you how to pronounce them. Then, we
will learn them in context. As we go, I will show you how to say words containing these
letters. So, at the same time, we will learn some Italian words that you can make part of
your Italian vocabulary.

And now COMINCIAMO, let’s start and have fun together.

Are you ready to start? I will say first, then give you few seconds to repeat after me.
Pronti? Ready?
A - B - C - D - E - F - G - H - I -L - M - N - O - P -

Q-R-S-T-U-V-Z

How do you feel? You can rewind this lesson as many times as you want and drill on the
alphabet as long as you wish.

I will pass now on to our next drilling: the VOCALI, the vowels. There are five vowels in
the Italian alphabet, there are five vowels in the English alphabet as well. But, you know
what’s really interesting?
For these five letters, there are in English 17 different sounds. Think of the so many
ways you pronounce the letter E, E in Italian, England, Ester, or the letter A, A in Italian,
even in the same word: parade.

In Italian you have 5 vocali, 5 vowels, 5 sounds. Let’s drill them together. As before, I
will say each of them once, and then you repeat after me before I go on to the next one.

A-E-I-O-U

Of course, you can rewind it as many times as you want.

Now, let’s drill on the consonant part of the alphabet. In Italian, there are 16 consonanti,
16 consonants, but only 15 sounds. You are wondering why? Because the letter H, H in
Italian, does not have a proper sound. It is only used to change the sound of some
consonants. But we will see this at a later time.

And now, COMINCIAMO, let’s start.

B-C-D-F-G-H-L-M-N-P-

Q-R-S-T-V-Z

Rewind this lesson as many times as you want and then, next time, we will go through
the combinations. So we will see how these vowels and consonants work together. I
know it may be a little bit boring, but bear with me. You will see what great results you
will get. And for now, ciao, alla prossima.