I have a lot of videos about Italian language and diction on my YouTube channel. I’m adding more regularly, so I encourage you to subscribe if you’d like to learn more about this topic!
Sounds of the Italian Language
This two-part series covers the sounds that exist in the Italian language. This will help you get used to hearing and making foreign sounds without having to learn spelling conventions right away. It also introduces the IPA symbols for the sounds in Italian so you’ll be able to read IPA transcriptions of Italian words.
The Italian Alphabet
Like in English, some letters of the Italian alphabet can stand for multiple different sounds. This video builds on the “Sounds of the Italian Language” series by introducing the possible sounds for each of the letters of the alphabet. This will prepare you for the next series, where I cover the actual spelling conventions.
Fundamentals of Italian Diction
This three-part series goes over basic spelling and pronunciation conventions in Italian. After learning this information, you should be reading IPA transcriptions proficiently. You should also be able to create your own IPA transcriptions with only minor errors.
Advanced Italian Diction
This series introduces advanced topics like phrasal doubling, word stress, glottal stops, and more complex rules of Italian pronunciation.
Common Pitfalls for English Speakers
This series goes over common mistakes English speakers make singing in Italian so you can refine your technique. It is targeted at people who already have basic familiarity with Italian pronunciation and the International Phonetic Alphabet.
Books on Italian Diction*
Here are a number of other books on Italian. I’m posting them here in the order I recommend them – the first book (by Kurt Adler) is the most highly recommended, and so on.
Italian Language
This is the textbook for my YouTube course on Italian language for beginners, along with four recommended bilingual dictionaries.
* Please buy books by clicking the links on this web site!