Italian Languages:
The importance of sound
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In other contexts, in front ofthe vowels “i” and “e”, such as “cielo” (sky), ciao (hello), cera (wax) is pronounced as / tʃ /, ie with the samesound of the English word “child”. The same problem occurswith the phoneme <g> which ispronounced / g / in front of the vowels “a”, “o”, “u” and / dʒ / before “e” and “I”. For example, “gara” (race),“gusto” (taste), gobbo (hunched) should be read with the sound / g /, the same as the English words “bag” and “gale”. But“giro” (round) and “gesto” (gesture) are pronounced as in English are pronounced "jet" and "cage".
For some consonants, the picture is a bit more complex as in the case of <q> and <h>, considered graphemes ofhistoric character. The first is found almost exclusively in the nexus / kw /, which originally in Latinwas transcribed with the graphic sequence <qu>, and today we find it in words such as “quadrato” (square), “equo” (fair),etc. The second is an old heritage from Latin, it does not correspond to any sound, andit is mostly used in the present of the verb “to have” – “ho” (I have), “hai (you have), “ha” (he/she has), “hanno” (they have) to distinguish them from homophones“o” (or), “ai” (to), a (in or at), “anno” (year), or in consonant clusters such as <ch> and <gh>, eg“chiesa” (church) or “ghianda” (acorn)to indicate a certain pronunciation.
The nexus <sc>, is pronounced / sk / in front of “a”, “o” and “u” asin the case of “scudo” (shield), “scala” (ladder) and “sconto” (discount)read as you can read "score" and "scan" of English. Whenit precedes the vowels "e" and "i", instead, <sc> is equivalent to the sound / ʃ /, such as in “scivolo” (slide), “scena” (scene), “scelta” (choice) which - for clarity - is pronounced like the nexus<sh>in the English words “ship”, “cash”,“short”,etc.