That’s why nowadays, Italian uses words borrowed from other languages, such as “yacht” and “karate”, which haven’t changed to adapt to the Italian spelling. It gets influenced by other languages, takes loan words, and adapts its vocabulary. However, like any other ‘modern’ language, Italian has evolved and continues to do so. In Italian, the “k” in “kilo” was replaced with the two-letter combination ch because when ch is followed by e or i, it makes a /k/ sound: chilogrammo‎‏‎. One of them is the prefix “kilo-”, that we find in words like “kilogram” and “kilometer”. If you’re interested in etymology (the study of word origins), you might know that some of the words we use in everyday English come from Ancient Greek. Need an example to wrap your head around this? While this might seem strange, it has a very simple explanation: these letters were, until recently, not needed in the Italian language. What Letters Are Not in the Italian Alphabet? Now that you’ve taken a good look at them, you might be wondering: what happened to J, K, W, X, and Y? Long story short: they’re not official letters of the Italian alphabet. These are the 21 letters of the Italian alphabet: That’s five less than English, whose alphabet contains 26 letters.īefore we dive into a search for the missing letters, let me introduce you to the ones that turned up to create the Italian alphabet. Officially, the Italian alphabet is made up of 21 letters. How many letters are there in the Italian alphabet? And if you’re not familiar with it, don’t worry! I’ve included a lot of audio to make sure you can get the pronunciation right.Īndiamo! (“Let’s go!”) Italian Alphabet 101: A Pronunciation Guide To keep things consistent, I’ll use the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) to help you make sense of the sounds. I’ve Learnt The Italian Alphabet – What’s Next?.A to Z in Italian: How Italians Spell Out Words with a Phone Alphabet.

Pronunciation of the ‘Extra Five’ Letters in Italian.Italian’s Crazy Love for Double Consonants.The Consonants that Sound Different in Italian and English: C, G, H, Q, R, and Z.Italian Alphabet Pronunciation: Let’s Make Sense of the Italian Alphabet Sounds.What Letters Are Not in the Italian Alphabet?.Italian Alphabet 101: A Pronunciation Guide.

Does the alphabet spell a word