Signor Pane

Here's a few things about Italian pronounciation, or at least as far as I've learned. It's fairly staright forward because the language is fawnetick (unlyk inglish) and once you know how the letters opporate you'll be well on your way. mostly this is to help you along with reading my future posts about Italy because I'll be throwing in some Italian words that I learn along the way.

Oh, and you remember that theory I said I had? It turned out to be true. There is no word in Italian for spelling because they don't have that problem. A word is written exactly as it sounds and therefore there's no need to communitcate a misspelling. Neat, eh!

 The Vowels:

 a - short a

 e - long a

 i - long e

 o - short o

 u - oo

 and that's that. come si scrivre is then read like com-eh see scree-v-ray. to help you out I'll be putting Italian words in bold like I did above.

 Some Other Things:

 ci - makes a ch sound

 ch - makes a k sound

 r - rrrroll up the rrrrim to win

 j - there is no j

 g - for the most part doesn't get pronounced, except in cases where it does

 all others - pronounce them as you would but with an italian accent.

 Young Elliott has been having trouble remembering/pronouncing my name. It's not Italian so the sounds are foriegn to his ears. However, he has, like others before him, discovered the similarities between the name Brad and the word bread. He has, along with the rest of the family, taken to calling me Pane (sound it out in Italian). There was a discussion at dinner tonight to perhaps name me a specific kind of bread (such as Bagel or Bagget or whole wheat ... that was my suggestion) but in the end Elliott had the last word and would still call me Pane.

 There is a saying in italian that says buono come pane which means good like bread. I couldn't agree more.