Troubled with Italian pronunciation

[Vicky]

Hello everybody! I'm new to the forum, and very excited to be here :) I'm currently learning Italian by myself and the language seems quite easy so far, but I'm experiencing a problem with the pronunciation of the words. For example, all the vowels are supposed to be spoken, but in the word "ciao", the "i" is not. How is that? Also, how are the double letters "zz", "cc", "rr" and so on, pronounced? It's a kinda tricky path, and I'd appreciate any help given. Thank you in advance.

[Dragon27]

You could start by reading up on Italian orthography, for example, on wikipedia. What makes you think that all the letters in the written form of the word should be pronounced? In the word "ciao" the letter "i" is merely an indicator that the previous letter "c" should be pronounced "softly" (as an affricate /tʃ/), not that there is an actual /i/ vowel (phoneme, sound) in the pronunciation of this word. In addition to that, you can't guess the pronunciation of the "o" and "e" letters (whether they represent open or closed vowels) in an arbitrary word, so the best way to know how the word should be pronounced is to look up the phonetic transcription in a good dictionary (for example Dizionario di pronuncia italiana - learn what phonetic symbols mean to be able to use it). You could also read something on Italian phonology. Wiki has an article on that too.

edit:
In order to quickly figure out what the IPA symbols with relation to Italian mean, you could use this wiki article. There's a couple of tables there consisting of three columns: IPA, Examples, English approximation. The English approximation could be rather crude, so I wouldn't pay much attention to it. Take an IPA symbol you're interested in, for example /ʎ/. It has the example words like: figli, glielo, maglia. The bold font signifies the part of the written word that represent the /ʎ/ sound. Then take one of the words (say, figli), open forvo and type (or copy-paste) it into the search box. You can immediately see in the search results that they have the pronunciation of this word in italian (figli with little it tag). You can click on the triangle to hear the recorded pronunciation of the word (and listen to it carefully to hear the target sound), or you can open up the page for the word itself (by clicking on it), if there's more than one recorded pronunciation of the word (it's always better to check all the variants). Try it with other example words until you're satisfied.

[Speakeasy]

Welcome to the forum, Vicky! I can appreciate that there are significant differences in pronunciation between your mother tongue, Greek, and Italian. I suspect that you might experience similar difficulties with French. Now then, …

Given your unique problem, which has to do with the pronunciation of Italian, I am about to suggest a language course which I absolutely loathe: FSI Programmatic Italian. This course places a great deal of (an inordinate amount of) emphasis on the correct pronunciation of Italian. It is freely available via the Yojik.eu website: https://yojik.eu/ under the section “FSI Courses”. Should you complete at least two-thirds of this course, you will develop a better appreciation for the correct pronunciation of Italian.

When I read your post, I hesitated before making the above recommendation. Below, are the comments that I posted concerning this course, under the topic “Contest The Worst Language Programmes Ever” in October, 2015:

"...I had previously completed the FSI Programmed Portuguese, Spanish, and German courses, along with a small number of similar programmatic courses in my first year at university all of which I found to be successful applications of the “programmed instruction” methodology. In my opinion, the FSI Programmed Italian course was an abject failure. The author, under the direction, guidance, and encouragement of the Senior FSI Language Staff misapplied a fairly successful methodology and provided the best example that I have ever encountered of how a good idea can be so poorly implemented that the idea itself becomes discredited. I made roughly ten unsuccessful attempts at completing the FSI Programmed Italian course before finally buckling down and forcing my way through to the end.

As an example of the misapplication of an instructional method, who, in their right mind, would design a language course that introduces an open vowel as “no. 70” where the “0” is meant to remind the student to open his mouth wide while pronouncing it and, later in the programme, require that the student reproduce “vowel no.70” from memory? This bullsh*t goes on for chapter-after-chapter and, while the student is ultimately introduced to some elementary phrases of rather limited use, the cumulative effect of the author's application of the programmatic method mirrors that of water-boarding …"

Given my admittedly strong reaction to the “FSI Programmed Italian” course, I wish you greater enjoyment than I derived from studying with these materials. Who knows, they just might work for you!

EDITED:
Tinkering.

[Vicky]

Dragon27 and Speakeasy,
Thank you both for your quick and thourough replies.
Dragon27, everything I know about the italian language, I learned from apps like "fun easy learn", "Italian Grammar" on play store, and everything I could find on the internet. So, I may have misunderstood what I referred to my previous post as "all vowels are supposed to be spoken". Specifically, in the following site (https://www.iwillteachyoualanguage.com/ ... tion-guide) , this phrase stuck in my mind: "Italian is a phonetic language.This means that it is spoken the way that it is written." I quickly realised that something was off although I couldn't figure out what exactly, thus the reason I posted in this forum. Your reply cleared most of my confusion, and it has been very helpful.
Speakesy, the truth is that when I hear people talking Italian the accent and pronunciation is more familiar to the ear rather than the French language, which I have little experience with. Besides, some words are the same in Greek and italian as they are borrowed from one another. I appreciate you being objective about the site you suggested, I'll check it out very soon.
I believe I got the answers I was hoping to find. Thank you both for your time!

[Speakeasy]

Hello, again, Vicky. Thank you for your kind remarks. Now then, should you visit the Yojik.eu website, you will likely notice that the “FSI Italian FAST” course is also available. Although this course might not be as directly useful in assisting you develop correct pronunciation of Italian as the “FSI Programmatic Italian” course would be, you still might wish taking a closer look at the former.

All of the FSI (Foreign Services Institute) FAST (Familiarization and Short Term Training) courses were conceived for presentation in a classroom by a qualified instructor. As such, and given that the accompanying notes to the student are rather limited, using these courses in a self-instruction situation can represent quite a challenge. Despite this inherent weakness, the materials themselves (the dialogues, narratives, and exercises) of “FSI Italian FAST” course are the most comprehensive that I have ever encountered in an introductory-to-intermediate course for the study of Italian from an English base. For this reason, I suggest that you take a close look at this course.

An interesting feature of the “FSI Italian FAST” course is that the voice-actors whose talents were employed in preparing the accompanying audio recordings spoke at a fairly rapid cadence, one which mirrors conversation between native speakers. This can be a little “jarring” for students who are more comfortable with the somewhat slower cadence used in most commercially-prepared introductory language courses (the Assimil courses, in the initial lessons at least, use the slower cadence to excess). Despite the obvious difficulties associated with listening to native-speed dialogues from the outset, the student is afforded the compensating advantage of acclimatizing himself/herself to what he/she will eventually encounter in the real world.

Should you decide to work through a few lessons of the “FSI Italian FAST” course, I suggest that you keep a simple grammar of the Italian language close at hand so as to compensate for the skeletal notes to the student.

In addition, upon accessing this course via the Yojik website, you will notice that there are two sets of audio recordings. There are no differences between the “Italian Fast Original” and the “Italian Fast Update” in terms of the recordings themselves. However, some inspired, unnamed and unheralded volunteer segmented the original recordings (which were available as audio cassettes; hence often of 30 minutes duration each) into shorter, more manageable sections, which greatly facilitates their use with the accompanying course manuals. So then, should you decide to download the audio recordings, I would recommend that you choose the “Italian Fast Update” set.

Ciao, for now!

[Neurotip]

For example, all the vowels are supposed to be spoken, but in the word "ciao", the "i" is not. How is that? Also, how are the double letters "zz", "cc", "rr" and so on, pronounced? It's a kinda tricky path, and I'd appreciate any help given. Thank you in advance.

Hi Vicky and again welcome.

If I understand correctly, there's no 'ι' sound in e.g. 'κιόλας' either, but the 'κ' is pronounced differently from the 'κ' in 'κάνω'. So in Italian, the 'i' in 'ciao' tells you to pronounce the 'c' differently from the sound in 'cane'. In both cases there was an 'i' sound historically, but first it changed the sound of the 'k', then it disappeared.
Correct me if I'm wrong! My Greek is still fairly basic...