Learn these three things and you can read any Italian word aloud.
Italian is a phonetic language. Every letter has one sound. Always the same. No silent letters, no surprise pronunciations, no exceptions that eat the rule.
Once you know these three rules, you can read anything and be understood — even with an accent.
A, E, I, O, U each have one fixed sound. The A is always A — it never slides toward “ay” the way it does in English words like face or name. No blending. No drifting.
Before A, O, U: hard sound (like K and the G in “go”).
Before I and E: soft sound (like CH in “church” and the G in “genre”).
Almost always. When it falls on the last syllable, there is a written accent mark — so you will always see it coming.
