Italian Lesson

We use a lot of Italian words in English. One of my pet peeves is to hear Italian words pronounced incorrectly. Romance languages have very easy pronunciation rules which don’t have many (if any) exceptions. So why not pronounce Italian words correctly?

One of my most common pet peeves is the mispronunciation of the word ‘bruschetta’. I hear it mispronounced incorrectly very frequently and have even heard it mispronounced on TV. Here is the pronunciation rule:

‘Sch’ in Italian is pronounced like those letters in the English word, ‘school’ with a ‘k’ sound. ‘Sc’ is the ‘sh’ sound in English but when the ‘h’ is added, it makes it a hard ‘c’ sound like the ‘k’ sound in English. So the word ‘bruschetta’ is pronounced phonetically ‘bru-ske-ta’. With the ‘k’ sound.

It’s not polite to correct the mispronunciation, however if you hear the word pronounced incorrectly, just use it correctly soon after. If someone tries to correct your correct pronunciation, just explain the ‘h’ rule and maybe there will be one more person on earth who pronounces ‘bruschetta’ correctly.

Pesce (pay-shay)= fish
Pesche (pe-skay) = peaches

Got it?

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