Posted in Italian languages and grammar on Feb 08, 2018
In Italian we have to write the accent mark only on words that have the stress on the last syllable (città, caffè, università…). If the stress it’s somewhere else on the word the right pronunciation is a bit of a guess but don’t worry to much!!! Italian hasn’t got a big number of very long words and you will learn how to pronounce them by repetition!
The direction of the accent in Italian is not a big problem either: the accent is always grave on
A – I – O – U (à, ì, ò, ù)
Just the “e” at the end of the word sometimes carries a grave accent and some other times an acute one.
The distinction is not considered very important, though: an “e” with a grave accent is not really pronounced differently to an “e” with an acute accent. That’s because in Italian the only function of the accent is to let you know that you have to stress that particular vowel. The direction is just a graphic detail. However here some guidelines relating to the most common words ending in a stressed “e”:
on the verb è (he/she/it is)
on the words caffè (coffee) and tè (tea)
on the word perché (why or because)
on the monosyllable né. Non sono né alto né basso. (I am neither tall nor short)
Posted in Italian languages and grammar on Sep 13, 2018
Some words accented on the same syllable change meaning depending on whether the pronunciation of the E or O is either open or closed.
Posted in Italian languages and grammar on Dec 18, 2018
When speaking, the tone of the voice falls on a particular syllable, called tonic. It is said that the accent "falls" on that syllable.
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