🔊 Pronunciation Tips
Sounds, stress and rhythm — the details that make you easier to understand.
These tips focus on the sounds and patterns that Italian speakers often find trickiest in English.
Tricky sounds
Put your tongue gently between your teeth and blow air out — don't replace it with 'f', 's' or 't', which is a common habit for Italian speakers.
think vs fink · thing vs sing · three vs tree
Italian doesn't distinguish these two vowel lengths, so both often sound like 'ee'. The short version is shorter and more relaxed.
ship vs sheep · live vs leave · bit vs beat
In Italian, 'h' is silent, but in English it's a real sound — a soft breath out. Don't skip it.
hat (not 'at') · house (not 'ouse') · happy (not 'appy')
Italian doesn't have the English 'w' sound. Round your lips for 'w' — don't touch your teeth to your lip like you would for 'v'.
west vs vest · wine vs vine · we vs V (the letter)
The English 'r' doesn't touch the roof of your mouth like the Italian rolled 'r'. Curl your tongue back slightly without touching anything.
red, right, very — practise saying them without any 'trill'
Word stress
English words have one syllable that's stressed (said louder and longer) — get it wrong and the word can be hard to recognise, even if every sound is correct. Italian stress patterns don't always match English ones, so it's worth learning word stress individually.
Notice how the stress moves depending on the ending — this happens a lot in English and is worth listening for.
Sentence stress & rhythm
English is a "stress-timed" language — the important words (nouns, verbs, adjectives) are stressed, while small connecting words (a, the, to, and) are said quickly and quietly. This gives English its natural rhythm.
Try clapping on the stressed words as you say the sentence — it helps train the rhythm.