Italian for Beginners: The COMPLETE Crash Course to Speaking Basic Italian in 5 DAYS OR LESS! (Learn to Speak Italian, How to Speak Italian, How to Learn Italian, Learning Italian, Speaking Italian)

By Bruno Thomas

Speaking Basic Italian in 5 Days Is Possible!

If you're thinking of travelling to Italy, want to gain a basic understanding of the language or simply have an interest in Europe's finest culture, then you're in the right place. This book will show you how to speak basic Italian, right here and right now!

Learning a new language, as we all know, can be an extremely daunting task and seem impossible to accomplish. That's exactly why we've written this book - because we want to help you learn to speak Italian quickly and easily, so you can enjoy speaking this beautiful language without months of exhausting lessons.

Even if you've never before spoken a word of Italian, we'll show you how to learn enough to hold a decent conversation in a surprisingly short amount of time. We won't teach you any exhaustive grammar or useless vocabulary. Only the important things - the ones that matter.

Inside the Guide You'll Find:

â ¢ Most common Italian words and phrases, such as: presenting yourself to people, asking for directions, traveling, finding your way in the city, ordering food at a restaurant, shopping, health and emergencies, money exchange, dating, and more...
â ¢ Most important rules of Italian grammar
â ¢ Phonetic spelling of every word and phrase
â ¢ International Phonetic Alphabet of every word and phrase
â ¢ And much, much more...

So do not hesitate! Grab your copy NOW and start speaking Italian in a matter of days!

** Since 2012 Italian for Beginners has been the #1 choice for beginners, tourists and students alike who either wanted to learn Italian from scratch or needed a refresher to remind them how to speak this enchanting language once again. It still is the perfect tool for these purposes to this day.

• Language: English
• Publisher: eBookIt.com
• Release date: Nov 27, 2020
• ISBN: 9781456636005

Book preview

INTRODUCTION

This ebook is a basic guide to the Italian language. The main goal is to inform readers about the most important grammar rules and common phrases of the Italian language.

Italian for Beginners doesn’t offer an exhaustive grammar and vocabulary; however it is very useful if you are a beginner and if you want to travel to Italy.

* The vocabulary inside the guide is presented in the following format:

Word in English • Word in Italian • Phonetic Spelling • IPA (International Phonetic Alfabeth)

IPA and Our Special Phonetic Spelling

IPA symbols can be confusing when learning a foreign language. This is because some of them don’t look like the letters of our common alphabet. For examples: ø, ɛ, ɥ, ɔ̃.

Why don’t we just use our usual letters, you ask? Since this guide is for English speakers learning Italian, the following explanations apply only to English and Italian:

For these reasons, among many others, an international alphabet has been set up to cover all ‘sounds’ in all languages.

We will, however, try to give you the Italian pronunciation using regular letters of the alphabet, in case you don’t know how to read IPA. We have called this PS, which stands for phonetic spelling.

It is also for the reasons above that some Italian sounds are impossible to ‘write’ in PS, because English-speakers simply don’t know how to shape their mouths to pronounce these sounds. Trying to write it in PS leads to a very strange series of letters, as you will discover!

The PS we have listed in this guide, therefore, is just a guide and will not enable you to pronounce Italian perfectly. Nevertheless, it is the best representation of how an English-speaker, who doesn’t understand IPA, will be able to pronounce an Italian word.

It isn’t perfect, but it’s as close as you’re going to get without the IPA and will certainly enable you to be understood by an Italian speaker. With time, as you begin hearing Italian spoken by natives, experience will iron out the roughness of your accent and give your Italian more finesse.

On that note, here are some explanations on the PS in this guide.

Italian Vowels and Phonetic Spelling

Vowels in Italian are very important. Every single syllable and most Italian words end with a vowel, so pronouncing them correctly is key to expressing exactly what you need to say.

A

In Italian, the letter A is always pronounced in the same way as the A in the English word machine, with no exceptions. For this reason, you will find the word machine translated as:

Machine • macchina • mak-kee-na• ‘makkina

When the stress in a word is on the vowel A, this A should be pronounced for slightly longer, similar to the English Ah. In the word macchina, the stress is on the first syllable (PS: mak); therefore, you should pronounce this A for slightly longer as compared to the A of the English machine.

E

The vowel e can be stressed both è and é. The difference lies only in the pronunciation. The first è is pronounced with an open mouth (like the E in the English word text), instead of é, which is pronounced with a more closed mouth (like the E in the English word declaration):

Coffee • caffè • kaf-feh • kaf'fɛ

Why • perché • per-ke • per'ke

To help you recognize when you should use an open or closed mouth, the  closed