but you're speaking English

you may have an Italian accent

But what does this actually mean?

Almost all words in Italian end in vowel sound

which means that Italian speakers are

not used to pronouncing words ending in a consonant

For English words ending in a consonant

Italians may add a vowel to make it easier to pronounce

For example, "man" would be become "man-a"

Listen to how vowels are added in the following clips

The /r/ sound in English

is made with the tongue

not touching the top of the mouth: /r/

In Italian

the tip of the tongue does touch the top of the mouth

It's sometimes called a rolling R

but linguists call it an alveolar tap or trill

Italians may use their /r/ sound

when speaking English

Italian has a difference between single

and double consonants

Listen to the difference between these two Italian words

Notice how the T sound in the second word

is longer

Linguists call these double consonants geminates

which comes from the Latin word for twin

In English, we have words written with

two identical letters next to each other,

but they aren't usually pronounced as a longer sound

For example, we say "happy" and not "happppppy"

When Italian speakers talk in English

they are likely to follow the Italian rules

and pronounce any double letter as a longer sound

There's no /h/ sound in Italian

so Italian speakers

are likely to delete this sound when speaking English

Italian speakers may add a /h/ sound

to words beginning with a vowel

For example, the word "out"

may become “h-out”

This is called hypercorrection

Both Italian and English

have the /s/ and /z/ sounds

But these sounds exist in different environments

In Italian, when a word begins with SM or SL

the letter S is pronounced /z/

like in these words

But when a word begins with SM or SL in English

the letter S is pronounced /s/

For example

"small" and "slow"

Italian speakers are likely to follow

the rules of their native language

and pronounce words like "small" and "slow"

with a /z/ sound in English

Linguists give vowels names to make it easier to talk about them

The /əʊ/ vowel in the word "notes"

is called the GOAT vowel

It's a diphthong which means it moves from one vowel

towards another: /əʊ/

This vowel doesn't exist in Italian

so Italian speakers are likely to replace it

with a vowel sound in their native language

usually a monophthong which means

just one single vowel sound

Like many non-native English speakers

Italians may not distinguish between

the /iː/ vowel in FLEECE

and the /ɪ/ vowel in KIT

so words like "beat" - "bit" and "feet" - "fit"

may get mixed up

Unfortunately, the word "sheet" may also get

mixed up with another word...

Italian has 5 to 7 vowel sounds

depending on the variety

whereas British English has around 20

It's not easy speaking a foreign language

when there are so many new sounds

you have to make

But it's not just about new sounds

As we found out with the S and Z

there are rules about where a sound can appear in a word

and these rules are different

from language to language

These are just some of the features

that create an Italian accent in English

of course there are many others

such as rhythm and the TH sounds

but I can't cover everything in one video

If you're a non-native English speaker

who wants to improve your pronunciation

then sign up for my online course

Go to my website to find out more

If you've enjoyed this video

please like it

and share it with your Italian-speaking friends