Introduction 

Italian or lingua Italiana ˈliŋɡwa itaˈljaːna is a Romance language of the Indo-European language family. Italian is, by most measures and together with Sardinian, the closest language to Latin, from which it descends via Vulgar Latin.

Italian is an official language in Italy, Switzerland (Ticino and the Grisons), San Marino, and Vatican City.

Italian is also spoken by large expatriate communities in the Americas and Australia.

It is the second most widely spoken native language in the European Union with 67 million speakers 15% of the EU population and it is spoken as a second language by 13.4 million EU citizens (3%).Including Italian speakers in non-EU European countries such as Switzerland, Albania and the United Kingdom and on other continents, the total number of speakers is approximately 85 million.

During the Middle Ages, the established written language in Europe was Latin, though the great majority of people were illiterate, and only a handful were well versed in the language. In the Italian peninsula, as in most of Europe, most would instead speak a local vernacular. These dialects, as they are commonly referred to, evolved from Vulgar Latin over the course of centuries, unaffected by formal standards and teachings.

Ask native Italian speakers for help:

If you talk to a Italian person normally, your pronunciation is typically not corrected, unless a mistake changes the word entirely. If you have ever spoken in English to someone and the native language of the other one is not English, it is probably going to have some kind of emphasis. You’re always correcting them? Of course not! 

The Italian speakers are the same; they won’t normally correct your poor pronunciation and are just concerned with your comprehension. However, from my experience, they are just too pleased to assist you, if you ask for help with particular terms and phrases. Just ask your Italian friends if your pronunciation is wrong and ask them for their assistance in practicing.

Pay close attention to difficult sounds:

Fortunately, in Italian, there aren’t many difficult sounds, but some you need to pay attention to.

You know how all the sounds are pronounced! But word building is more than simply shooting these separate sounds into sentences. But there’s a lot of different Italian words to pronounce with identifying the difficult words.

You’ll find great video analysis on difficult Italian words on YouTube by different creators, which include more detail on vowels, including native speaker sound clips and mouth shaping while sounding. This method helps you learn and concentrates perfectly on your utterance.

Listen and observe

Observe how others speak and listen to their pace and intonation. When you answer in a conversation, try to mimic the pace and tone of the other person. If you have problems pronouncing certain words, observe how native speakers say them. Watch how they form the words with their mouths and then practice at home.

Look words up

Develop the habit of looking up a word when you’re unsure of how to pronounce it. Most online dictionaries don’t only define words, they also have a feature that lets you hear how the word sounds when spoken. Beside or below a word, you may see an icon that looks like a speaker. Click on the icon and hear the word pronounced. If you don’t want to use this feature, just check its phonetic spelling written the way it should be said.

Practice, practice, practice

It might sound obvious when I say “practice,” but the key is to make sure you’re practicing the right way.

When improving pronunciation, you have to say the words and phrases you’re learning out loud as much as possible. When you’re studying by yourself, it can be easy to just read, write and listen to CDs without ever actually saying anything out loud. While listening repetitively is good, it’s essential for you to say new phrases aloud, too.

Repeat everything you hear, paying special attention to the ups and downs or the “music” of the language (intonation), and also the tricky sounds (pronunciation).

Mimic/Shadow everything you see and hear

When you watch Italian TV programs or movies, there will be many phrases and words that you’ll hear and think, “I want to learn that phrase.”

Pause the movie and mimic what you hear, paying close attention to intonation as well as pronunciation. Then go an extra step beyond that.

How are the actors’ facial expressions when they speak? Do they bow, smile or frown when they say certain things?

Speaking like a native doesn’t stop at pronunciation and intonation. To speak perfect Italian, you have to mimic everything the natives do.