Italian phrases for travelers

When the Roman Empire spread through Europe, native dialects combined and mixed with Latin, transforming them into what we now call “Romance languages.” Italian is a widely-used modern language with ancient roots stemming from the Latin used by the Roman Empire. If you speak another Romance language, like Spanich, French or Portuguese, you might be able to learn Italian more quickly. That’s because the Romance languages all experienced the same union and transformation with Latin.

Why learn Italian?

Because you love la dolce vita and the Italian style. Learning Italian will bring you into a culture shared by more than 65 million Italian speakers worldwide. It’s the official language of Italy and San Marino, as well as one of the official languages of Switzerland. It is also spoken to varying extents in in Slovenia, Croatian, Argentina, Eritrea, Malta, and elswhere.

This is your opportunity to plunge into the flavors, styles, traditions of one of the world’s most elegant, historic languages.
Your passion for art history, ancient civilizations, architecture, literature will be completed with the opportunity of reading the original book or better understand the Italian masterpieces.
Because you want to chat with your old relatives in their native tongue, decipher that family spaghetti sauce recipe, or just expand your knowledge of the rich heritage of Southern Europe.

Pronunciation

Each vowel in Italian is pronounced clearly and distinctly. Some important vowel sounds to remember in Italian are: a as in father, e as in bent or ray, i as in police, o as in no, and u as in noon. Diphthongs include ai as in ripe, eu as in play, ia as in yarn, oi as in boy, and uo as in war. Also, an accent over a vowel sometimes indicates a stressed syllable, as in la città (the city), or is simply used to distinguish words, as in e (and) and è (is). The apostrophe is sometimes used in Italian to mark the omission of a vowel. For example, when the word dove (where) is combined with è (is), the e in dove is dropped: Dov’ è? (Where is?)

Many consonants sounds are similar to English, but keep in mind some of the exceptions: c (before e or i) as in church, g (before e or i) as in joy, z as in pits or adds, and silent h. The combinations ch and gh are pronounced as cat and go respectively. The consonant r is a trilled sound made with the tongue against the ridge behind the upper teeth. Some special Italian sounds are: gl as in scallion, gn as in canyon, sc before e or i as in fish, and sc before a, o, or u, as in scout.