Learning a new language in your 50s isn't the easiest thing to do. Oh, I'm OK when it comes to getting the concepts and even the vocabulary, but when it comes to speaking, well, that's another matter.
A few years ago I learned to roll my Rs by singing along with Andrea Bocelli in the bathtub. This trip I noticed that I was pronouncing my vowels differently from the Italians. Bill says if you don't hear the sound, you cannot pronounce it. And herein lies (or is it lays) my problem.
Take for example the verb to have: ho means I have and ha means he has or she has. The problem was with ho. I simply said o as in a long o. I noticed, however, that my Italian friends were saying something that sounded close to what I thought was the a sound. So I asked Kikka about this. Actually, we had a language lesson right there in her parents' livingroom. I think they were amused. I finally concluded that I have to say ho like I would say the French word eau. I clarified that with my Italian professor today who happens to be French. Ho is not like the French eau, the latter of which rhymes with bow. If you're keeping count, there are now two languages that I am mispronouncing.
Well, that puts me back to square one. My first Italian book says there are two o sounds--a closed and open sound, "the pronunciation of which varies regionally." Big help that is. I guess the word Roma is an example of a closed o and ho is an example of an open one. There is the o as in soft (open?) and the o as in oh (closed?). OK, I get that. But then it says the a is like the a in father. Sadly, the vowels in soft and father sound about the same to me. Hmmm...I think I need to go around the house repeating soft father with an emphasis on the a in father before I attempt ho ha.
Evidently, e is an open and shut case, too! You can have an e as in late "without the glide," whatever that is or an e as in let.
The i is pretty easy except that it produces the sound of a long e and when you spell in Italian its name sounds like ee, so if your not very good in Italian you think people are saying e instead of i.
The u sounds like the ou in coupon unless you say coupon the other way. It's fairly easy to keep straight except when I say Gianicolo which shouldn't be a problem since there is no u. Nevertheless, I always want to say Giani-cue-lo, and that would be wrong.
And then there's the gli. My book says it sounds like the lli in million. I haven't mastered that one yet. Kikka says I pronounce that like a northern Italian.
Italian has a soft and hard c. We stayed in the historic downtown which they refer to as in centro. The c sounds like ch--chentro. But if you're from Rome, the soft c sounds a little more like sh with just a hint of the ch sound. That's good for me because Tricia is not an Italian name. If it weren't for the really soft Roman c, my name would sound like Tree-cha; fortunately, in Roma I hear Tree-sha. Of course, I'll answer to anything.
I have a lovely Oxford Italian-English dictionary (it's really thick) that contains symbols from the International Phonetic Alphabet. I guess I should learn that alphabet, too, and start paying attention!
Now say these three words to yourself: Mary, merry, and marry. Bill says each word differently, but to me they are all merry, merry, merry. So now it's three for three languages I cannot pronounce correctly!
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