U is a vowel. How do you pronounce U in Italian? Read on to find out.
Table of Contents
How to pronounce U in Italian
U is always pronounced in the same way, no matter its position in the word. It sounds like the oo in loo, but it’s more closed.
Its IPA symbol is /u/.
U
U sound
Examples:
Uva, lupo, ululare, super, mucca
(/ˈuva/, /ˈlupo/, /uluˈlare/, /ˈsuper/, /ˈmukka/)
Grapes, wolf, to howl, super, cow
Length of the U sound
The U sound in Italian can be short or long.
It is long if it’s stressed and it’s at the end of the syllable, but not at the end of a word. For example…
Laguna
(/laˈguna/)
Lagoon
Listen closely. The “u” in laguna is long, since it’s stressed and is at the end of the syllable (gu).
Presunta
(/preˈzunta/)
Alleged
The stress is yet again on the second “u” vowel, but its length is short because the syllable ends with an -n (sun).
Other Italian words with the U sound
Upupa
(/ˈupupa/)
Hoopoe
Puzza
(/ˈputtsa/)
Bad smell
Lusso
(/ˈlusso/)
Luxury
Salubre
(/saˈlubre/)
Healthy
Lucciola
(/ˈlutʧola/)
Firefly
Futuro
(/fuˈturo/)
Future
Your turn!
Pronounce each given word.
Easy
Hard
What next?
If you liked this lesson on how to pronounce U in Italian, you might want to keep learning Italian online with these other free Italian resources:
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