Spanish → Italian
Italian uses 30 sounds. You already own 21 of them from Spanish. The other 9 are the work — and 9 of those are the dangerous kind: close enough to something you already say that you will substitute them without hearing yourself do it.
The silent swaps
Your mouth has something close enough to reach for. These survive for years precisely because they sound right to you — the fix is hearing the difference first, not trying harder.
the move: bilabial → labiodental
Italian: wine · written "v"
Your /β/ is the one in haber (to have).
the move: dental → alveolar
Italian: mistake · written "s (before voiced consonant, often between vowels)"
Between vowels northern speakers say [z] (casa → kaza), Tuscany [s].
Your /ð/ is the one in nada (nothing).
the move: alveolar → postalveolar
Italian: fish · written "sc(i)", "sce"
Your /s/ is the one in sol (sun).
the move: postalveolar → alveolar
Italian: pizza · written "z", "zz"
z is /t͡s/ or /d͡z/ — lexical. Default here: /t͡s/.
Your /t͡ʃ/ is the one in chico (boy).
the move: voiced
Italian: day · written "g(i)", "ge"
Your /t͡ʃ/ is the one in chico (boy).
the move: open → open-mid
Italian: beautiful · written "e", "è"
Your /a/ is the one in casa (house).
the move: close-mid → open-mid
Italian: thing · written "o", "ò"
Your /o/ is the one in oso (bear).
the move: postalveolar → alveolar, voiced
Italian: zero · written "z", "zz"
Your /t͡ʃ/ is the one in chico (boy).
Words you may say identically
Two or more Italian sounds landing on one sound of yours. Until the ear separates them, the mouth cannot — which is what the ear trainer is for.
- t͡ʃ = d͡ʒ = t͡s = d͡z → your t͡ʃ vs vs vs train this pair →
- ɲ = ʎ → your ɲ vs
- s = ʃ → your s vs train this pair →
- a = ɛ → your a vs
- o = ɔ → your o vs train this pair →
Rhythm and pitch
The layer spelling never records, and the one that makes a correct sentence still sound foreign.
| Spanish | Italian | |
|---|---|---|
| Rhythm | Syllable-timed | Syllable-timed + long consonants |
| Stress | Fully contrastive, and mercifully written: if a word breaks the default pattern (stress on the second-to-last syllable for vowel/-n/-s endings, on the last otherwise) it carries an accent. Three-way minimal sets are common and the accent is the only thing separating them. | Contrastive. The default is the second-to-last syllable, and the accent is only written when the stress falls on the LAST one (città, perché). Words stressed on the third-from-last (àncora, prìncipi) are common and unmarked — the dictionary is the only way to know. |
What you have that Italian doesn't
6 sounds with no job in Italian. They are not mistakes — but they are where an accent leaks in, because a sound you own is easy to use when a hard one is due.
The honest caveat
This is a prediction from the shape of two sound systems, not a recording of you. It says what your inventory makes likely — it cannot know that your Spanish has a regional variety that already owns one of these, or that you learned Italian from someone whose accent you copied. A teacher listening to you beats it. Use it to know what to listen for.
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