What are the most important spelling rules in Italian?

Italian spelling rules are pretty simple and limited in number. If English is your native language, and you master its — let’s face it — at times crazy spelling rules, the Italian ones will be a piece of cake. First of all, each letter usually corresponds to one sound. Consider the word pasta(pasta), for instance: it is made of five letters and each of them has one sound: /p-a-s-t-a/

I know, “usually” sounds a bit suspicious in the paragraph above. No worries: it’s true that there are some special combinations of consonants and vowels, but a few simple rules will help you figure out those irregularities.

Ready to learn all about Italian spelling rules? Let’s go!

The Italian alphabet is made of 21 plus five letters: there are, indeed, 21 “Italian” letters — derived from the basic Latin alphabet — plus five foreign letters, namely “j,” “k,” “w,” “x,” and “y.” The foreign letters are mostly used in words borrowed from other languages, such as jazz, kiwi, pixel, and yogurt. Check out the Italian alphabet to find out the name of each of its 21+5 letters.

The five Italian vowels (“a,” “e,” “i,” “o,” “u”) represent seven phonemes, or sounds:

• “a,” “i,” and “u” always have the same open sound, regardless of where they happen to appear in the word:

  • angelo(angel) → “a” sounds like [ah]

  • ieri(yesterday) → “i” sounds like [ee]

  • uccello(bird) → “u” sounds like [oo]

• “e” and “o,” on the other hand, can either be open vowels or closed vowels:

  • affinché(so that)→ this is a closed “e”

  • è(is) → this is an open “eh”

  Let’s look at just a couple more examples:

  • bene(well):

    The first “e” should be open since the stress of the word falls on that (but you would hear it closed in Milan and most of Northern Italy). The second “e” is closed since it’s unstressed.

  • perciò(therefore):

    Here the graphic accent on the “o” tells us that it’s an open “o”.

  • oggi(today):

    The “o” is open since it is in the stressed syllable, but you would hear it closed in Puglia!

Graphic accents are the marks on the top of the vowels and in Italian they are used to indicate or to distinguish open and closed vowels. Above, we mentioned the graphic accent ó and you might wonder: when does Italian use a graphic accent, in general? Let’s unfold everything about it.

In Italian there are three types of graphic accents:

• grave accent: `

• acute accent: ´

• circumflex accent: ^

#3 is really uncommon and basically only used when there’s a double "i" at the end of the word — like the plural of principio(principle), which can be spelled principii or principî — so let’s consider grave and acute accents only.

Here are some points to remember about the grave and acute accents:

• Accents can go with any vowel but a graphic accent is mandatory when the stress falls on the last of the word, as in città(city), poiché(since), colibrì(hummingbird), perciò(therefore), and virtù(virtue).

• With "a," "i," and "u," the accent is always grave ( ` ) or acute ( ´ ), although "ó" does not exist in contemporary Italian. The thing to remember is: grave accent indicates an open sound, while acute accent expresses a closed sound. Look at these examples:

  • perché(why, because), which sounds like [per-ke]

  • caffè(coffee), which sounds like [kaf-feh]

  • però(but), which sounds like [pe-roh]

• In addition to telling us where our tongue should be when pronouncing accented vowels, the graphic accent can play an important role resolving ambiguities, as in e(and) vs. è(is), or da(from) vs. dà(gives).

• When the word is formed by more than one syllable, and stress is not on the final syllable, the graphic accent is not mandatory and only used when there would realistically be confusion about meaning.

  Let’s take for instance, the word ancora , which can either mean “still” or “anchor.” If I say il marinaio ha gettato l’ancora(the sailor threw the anchor), it’s really unlikely that someone would think I’m saying ancora as "still," therefore there’s no need to put a graphic accent on the sailor’s àncora.

  But in other sentences, a graphic accent might be useful. For example, the word compito can mean either “homework” or “courteous.” In the sentence below, adding the accent helps us recognize which word is which:

  Ho restituito il compito con fare compìto.

  I return my homework in a courteous manner

  In these (uncommon) cases, the graphic accent might be added to the least common meaning of the word, in this case, compìto(courteous) and not compito(homework).

Most Italian sound like the English ones (e.g. “f,” “l,” “m,” or “n”) but there are some tricky letter combinations and clusters to look out for. Let’s go over them, starting with “c” and “g.”

• The letter “c”

  The letter “c” can have two sounds in Italian:

  • “c” is pronounced like the “k,” as in the word “cat” whenever it is followed by “a,” “o,” “u,” or any consonant (typically, “h”, “l,” or “r”). For example, in all of the following words, “c” has a hard sound: [k]

    • casa[kasa](house)

    • costo[kosto](cost)

    • cuore[kuore](heart)

    • chiesa[kieza](church)

    • classe[klasseh](class)

    • croce[krocheh](cross)

  • “c” is pronounced like the “ch” sound, as in the word “cheese,” whenever it is followed by “e” or “i.” In the words below, “c” is pronounced with a soft sound: [ch]

    • cestino[chestino](basket)

    • cielo[chielo](sky)

  Coming back to “n” and “l” we mentioned above: when “g” is followed by them, “g” has a special sound, which can be a little tricky for English speakers. Let’s take a look:

  • “gn” is pronounced like the sound “ny” makes in the English word “canyon”

    lasagne[lazanyeh](lasagna)

  • “gl” is roughly pronounced like the “y” sound in the word “yes”

    famiglia[fameelya](family)

• The letter “g”

  The letter “g” works pretty much like the letter “c” in Italian, but it has some extra twists.

  • “g” is pronounced like the “g” sound in the word “goat” whenever it is followed by “a,” “o,” “u,” or any consonant but “n” and “l” (more on this here below!). Here are some examples of words where “g” has a hard sound: [g]

    • gatto[gato](cat)

    • gola[gola](throat)

    • gufo[gufo](owl)

    • ghetto[geto](ghetto)

    • grande[grandeh](big)

  • “g” has a “j” sound, like in the word “jam,” whenever followed by an “e” or an “i.” In the words below, “g” has a soft sound: [j]

    • cestino[chestino](basket)

    • cielo[chielo](sky)

• The letter ‘h’

  The letter “h” in Italian is always silent.

  In some cases, its role is to distinguish words with the same pronunciation but different meaning, for example:

  ho(I have) vs. o(or)

  In other instances, the “h” changes both the meaning and the pronunciation, like ci[chi](us), vs. chi[ki](who).

• The letters ‘q’ and ‘k’

  The letters “q” and “k” are always pronounced with a hard “c” sound = [k]. Additionally “q” is always followed by the vowel “u” in Italian. For example:

  • quaderno[kwaderno](notebook)

  • kit[kit](kit)

• Voiced vs. unvoiced ‘s’

  The letter “s” in Italian can be either or unvoiced.

  • The “s” is unvoiced (like the “s” sound in the English word “snake”) when:

    • it appears before a vowel at the beginning of a word: sale[sale](salt)

    • it appears before any unvoiced consonants (“c,” “f,” “p,” “q,” “t”): scala[skala](hair)

    • It’s a double “s”: sasso[saso](stone)

  • The “s” is voiced (like the “z” sound in the English word “zoo”) when:

    • it appears between two vowels: casa[kaza](house)

    • it’s followed by a voiced consonant (“b,” “d,” “g,” “l,” “m,” “n,” “r,” “v”): srotolare[zrotolare](to unroll)

Consonant clusters are two or more consonants in a row. Here are the tricky ones in Italian:

• Sounds of the consonant cluster ‘sc’

  The combination “sc” has a soft sound, like “sh” in the word “show,” when followed by “e” or “i.” It’s the same soft-sound rule of the letter “c.” For example:

  • scelta[shelta](choice)

  • sci[shi](ski)

  When followed by “a,” “o,” “u,” or a consonant, the sc has a hard sound, like [sk]:

  • scarpa[skarpa](shoe)

  • scopa[skopa](broom)

  • scuola[skuola](school)

  • schema[skema](schema)

• Double consonants

  Italian double consonants are pronounced a little longer than single ones. Sometimes double consonants versus single consonant change the meaning of the word:

  sete(thirst) vs. sette(seven)

  Double consonants are often a hard nut to crack for learners, but do not worry too much: context usually makes all the difference and, unless you’re uttering a single word totally out of context (how uncommon is that!?) the person you’re talking to would understand what you’re referring to. However, stressing double consonants will definitely step up your Italian skills, so don’t be shy and give it a try!

  Tip

  Pronouncing Italian double consonants is similar to saying two words back to back that end and start with the same consonant in English, like the two t’s in “I met Tom.”

Even though Italian spelling and pronunciation rules are fairly regular — the golden rule being one letter = one sound — there are some letter combinations to pay special attention to. In particular:

• “c” and “g” can have a hard sound, when followed by “a,” “o,” “u” or a consonant, or a soft sound, when followed by “e” or “i”

• the combination “gn” is pronounced like “ny” in the word “canyon,” while “gl” roughly sounds like the “y” in the word “yes”

• double consonants, which often appear in Italian words, are pronounced a little longer than single ones.

Time to check out the activities on the Italian spelling rules. Happy spelling!