Come speak some Italian with me tomorrow!
+ why pronunciation is key to successfully learning and speaking a new language
Tomorrow I'm running a 100% free live Italian language class along with Learn Italian with Davide.
But surprise surprise, the focus on Sunday will be on food: Italian food terms, ordering in a restaurant, how to order a coffee.
I wanted to get this off to you all right away to let you know about this free food and drink Italian lesson I’m doing with Davide. It's a live event - completely free - and I’d really like you to participate.
I'm super excited about this - it’s the first time I’ve done anything like it - and I want to share it with as many of you as possible; you know how much I love Italian food and wine!
The event is tomorrow (Sunday) 9 AM PST, 12 noon EST and 6 PM Rome time. The more the merrier so let your friends, followers and family know about the event.
Even if you don't think you can make it to the live event, sign up anyhow because you'll get a recording of the event.
Also, after you sign up, send me any questions you have wendy@flavorofitaly.com, and I'll make sure we answer them at the event.
And while we're talking about food, keep your eyes peeled for my soon-to-be-released How to Order Coffee in Italy e-book. This e-book will tell you everything you need to know about ordering coffee and it also has a detailed pronunciation guide.
It's one thing to look at coffee terms, or any other Italian food and drink terms, on paper and it's another to use the words and order yourself a coffee. But we’ll go into all that on Sunday in our live class.
Pronunciation is key!
I read an article back in October 2021 in the Economist, entitled:
“Why you have an accent in a foreign language: It’s because pronunciation, stress and rhythm are rarely taught well”
The article talks all about the subtleties of pronunciation.
In languages that rely on the Latin alphabet, like Italian, diacritics (such as accent marks) change a letter’s pronunciation, and quirks such as the -ch- in German or -gl- in Italian. (The first often sounds like the ch in Scottish loch, the second like the -ll- in million.)
The Economist says: “There is much more to learning a foreign accent than the sounds that the letters on the page represent. To begin with, the rough equivalents given in English are often quite rough indeed. In French, the p in Paris sounds rather different from the p in English, a contrast often neglected in textbooks: the French version lacks the strong puff of air of the English one. (Hold your palm in front of your mouth and say “Paris” in English. Then try making the p without the puff, and you’ll get the French kind.)
Even when textbooks or instructors mention this sort of nuance, the next step is often missing. As with chemistry, the important thing is not just how the elements behave in isolation, but how they come together. Each language has rules for these combinations, which native speakers (and many teachers) generally grasp but don’t or can’t explain.
Consider an easy example. All French words are stressed on the final syllable, a rule typically explained in textbooks. But the importance of the rule is often underplayed. It applies not only to French words but to any foreign name: French-speakers are acquainted with a Texan city called yoos-TON, not the English HYOO-ston. The final stress is quite emphatic, usually involving a higher pitch and greater volume. Meanwhile, English words often have a secondary as well as a primary stress: in “civilization” the primary stress is on the fourth syllable and the secondary stress is on the first. In French, the final-syllable stress is so strong as to leave little room for any other.
Next, languages differ in what linguists call phonotactics —in effect, what is a permissible syllable and what isn’t. The p in psychology and pterodactyl is silent because English phonotactic rules do not allow native words to begin with pt- or ps- sounds.
A similar befuddlement affects many foreigners learning English, perhaps even more so. The reason a Spaniard might say he is from Espain when speaking English is that sp-, st- and other consonant combinations are forbidden at the beginning of Spanish words.
English is unusually rich in consonant clusters that are, in practice, not allowed in other languages. Google a video of foreigners trying to say squirrel for another case study. The word combines an unusual skw- at the beginning, an odd vowel sound in the middle that most languages lack, and the tricky -rl at the end.
Another reason people are betrayed by their accents in other tongues, even if they are otherwise proficient, is that a language’s rhythm can be hard to pin down. They differ in how they space the syllables in a sentence. Cantonese and Italian, for instance, are “syllable-timed”: every syllable has roughly similar duration. Read this sentence aloud and try to pronounce every syllable this way, and you may find yourself halfway to mimicking an Italian. English is “stress-timed” (though less strictly), meaning that stressed syllables occur at roughly regular intervals, the remainder tending to be less distinctly pronounced. This is how you could distinguish Italian from English being spoken through a wall, even without being able to make out any individual sounds or words.
English-speaking tourists sometimes find themselves speaking English with a weird hybrid accent when they go abroad. Linguistic rhythm is infectious. But as with drumming or dancing, a little explicit teaching never hurts.
In our live Italian language class tomorrow we will be doing a little bit of explicit teaching!
See you tomorrow!