Learn Italian Vowels - Learn Italian Diphthongs

In this video you will learn to use and say different combination of Italian vowels.

Download here the PDF of the entire lesson and easily follow along with my video!

You can have different combinations of vowels.

Do you remember the Italian vowels?

They are A E I O U - remember that in Italian we have 5 vowel and 7 sounds… in my “vowel video” on my channel you can listen to the single sounds of these vowels. 

Remember that you pronounce almost all the letters when you are reading out a word in Italian. This is true also with vowels.

Take the word AIUOLA: this has 4 vowels together! Listen to the video and understand how I say it: 

AIUOLA 

Remember the simple rule…. you need to say all the letters out…

I do not want to hear GRAZI - or GRAZE —- no the sound is GRAZIE

GRAZIE! Say all the letters out! G R A Z I E 

There are different types of diphthongs: 

We call dittongo ascendente the combination where we have an I or a U in first position

• – ia, ie, io, iu
• piano, schiena, passione, fiume
• – ua, ue, ui, uo
• tregua, duemila, suino, suono

We call dittongo discendente the words where there are diphthongs with vowels I or U in second position: 

• – ai, ei, oi, ui
• zaino, farei, poi, lui
• – au, eu
• aumento, europeo

Diphthongs are found in many many words and in lots of verb conjugations. 

Think of these verbs:

• Venire, sedere, muovere, morire, potere, volere. 

When they are conjugated they have diphthongs! 

• tu vie-ni /io mi sie-do / lui può / lei vuo-le 

This is just to say that these sounds are found everywhere! and it’s good to master them!

Let’s now look at some sentences with these vowels in them. Watch the video and shadow the sentences to get the intonation and pronunciation down correctly! (Translations are on the video! ;)) 

• Aiuto! Si salvi chi può!
• Ho visto un uomo bellissimo fuori dalla scuola.
• Al mercato rionale c’e’ molto viavai
• Il ladro di quaglia è finito nei guai
• La quiete prima della tempesta.
• Vicino al fiume ci sono aiuole fiorite.
• Gianna ha un colloquio di lavoro.

 Remember that practice makes perfect! So keep at it do not give up and you will be closer to sounding more and more like an Italian!