Lesson 1

　　This Week's New Words:

　　ciao - hello, goodbye (familiar)

　　salve - hello

　　addio - goodbye

　　bene - well

　　egli - he (literary)

　　lui - he (common speech), him

　　ella - she (literary)

　　lei - she (common speech), her

　　esso - it (masculine)

　　essa - it (feminine)

　　essi - they (persons or things)

　　loro - them (persons or things), they (common speech, persons)

　　grazie - thank you

　　spiacente - I'm sorry

　　noi - us, we (plural)

　　signore - sir, mister, mr.

　　signora - madame, mrs.

　　signorina - miss

　　tu - you (informal)

　　voi - you (plural, formal and informal)

　　io - I

　　Numbers 1-10

　　0 zero

　　1 uno

　　2 due

　　3 tre

　　4 quattro

　　5 cinque

　　6 sei

　　7 sette

　　8 otto

　　9 nove

　　10 dieci

　　Pronunciation

　　The Italian alphabet is fairly similar to our own (English, or depending on where you're from, American). The letters K,J,W,X,Y occur only in foreign origin words. Each lesson will explain a few more letters. This week, I'll explain the interesting letters (or combinations thereof) from this week's words (above).

　　gli

　　The gli (followed or not by another vowel) in Italian is pronounced more or less as ll in Spanish

　　However there are words like glicine (flower name), negligente, anglicano in which, for etymological reasons, g and l are pronounced as two separate sounds as in English.

　　Thus, the Italian word coniglio (rabbit) is pronounced like conihlyo. and the word conigli (rabbits) is pronounced like conihli.

　　gn

　　The gn is the same sound as Spanish ? i.e. is the same sound as the ny pair in the word canyon.

　　Thus, signore is pronounced like sin-yore.

　　h

　　The Italian h is always silent and as such an Italian speaker won't pronounce it when it occurs in foreign origin words (e.g. hotel). Moreover the letter h in Italian occurs only in the groups ch and gh (see below) and in the present tense of the verb to have. Thus, ho ( [I] have ) is pronounced o and hanno ( [they] have) is pronounced anno, the same as the word anno (year).

　　a, e, i, o, u

　　The Italian vowels have only one sound, regardless of what letters they precede or follow, or accent marks on the vowel, with the (minor) exception of e and o.