How to pronounce Italian Double Consonants

A specific trait of the Italian Phonetics are the Double Consonants (in Italian “Consonanti doppie”). It means that in Italian there are words with letters that are spelt and pronounced as double.

In English it is common for example finding words that are spelt with two identical consonants, but this is different. Think for example to the words: “difference”, “illogical” or “possible”. The difference indeed is that in English those consonants do not have a specific – longer – pronunciation: they are spelt like one consonant only.

In Italian instead a longer sound (or a longer pause, it depends) corresponds to this couple of letters.

It is really important to make understand clearly these longer sound (or pause) to avoid any confusion among different (but similar) Italian words:

– pappa (baby food) / papa (the pope)

– notte (night) / note (notes)

– sette (seven) / sete (when you are thirsty)

– valle (valley) / vale (it is worth)

– bello (beautiful) / belo ( bleat)

– fatto (a fact) / fato (fate)

– fatte (done, female plural past participle) / fate (fairies)

– cassa (case) / casa (home, house)

– carro (wagon) / caro (dear or expensive)

This list could continue… 😉

See the video here below to know how to pronounce the Italian Double Consonants.

How to pronounce Italian Double Consonants

We have a nice Italian tongue twister (in Italian “sciogli-lingua“) about Apelle, the son of Apollo (maybe). This tongue twister is funny (“buffo” in Italian) because it contains many words with double consonants. So you can use it to learn and practice the double consonants pronunciation.

Apelle figlio di Apollo

Fece una palla di pelle di pollo

Tutti i pesci vennero a galla

Per vedere la palla di pelle di pollo

Fatta da Apelle figlio di Apollo

In translation approximately you have this:

Apelle, son of Apollo,

made a ball of chicken skin

All fishes came to the surface

To see the ball of chicken skin

Made from Apelle, son of Apollo

APOLLO, THE SON OF JUPITER WAS RIDING HIS CHARIOT ACROSS THE SKY EVERYDAY MAKIN THE SUN RISE.

(but this is another story)

How to pronounce Italian Double Consonants

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