Pronunciation Difficulties for Italians Learning English

Buongiorno! Welcome to my latest blog post which focuses on English #pronunciation! Italians wanting to learn English often have particular difficulty with a number of pronunciation sounds in the English language. This post will help you to realise which are the potentially difficult pronunciation sounds!

First example: the pronunciation of the English 'th' sound is particularly problematic for Italians. Therefore if the word 'three' [Italian: tre] is not pronounced correctly then the person listening to you may, instead, hear and understand the word 'tree' [Italian: albero] or ‘free’ [Italian: libero]. This could be potentially embarrassing and is best avoided by dedicating time to improving your pronunciation!

Here is a second example: be careful when thanking somebody in English, since “thanks” will sound like “tanks” (carri armati) if the English 'th' sound is incorrectly pronounced! Have fun practising your English!