| About 63 million people have Italian or Italiano as their | | | | na-tssjone. |
| native tongue. It is primarily spoken in Italy but other | | | | These are only a few unique rules of the Italian |
| places that have Italian language spoken among other | | | | language. |
| languages are Switzerland, Marino, and the Vatican | | | | Conversational Italian Words |
| City. Minorities speak Italian from nations like Croatia, | | | | 1. Sí-means yes. |
| France, Romania, and Slovenia. | | | | 2. Certo-means Of course. |
| Former colonies such as Ethiopia, Somalia, Libya and | | | | 3. Ciao!-means Hello. |
| Eritrea also speak the language. Most important of all, | | | | 4. Arrivederci-means Goodbye. |
| immigrants who have gone to places like Venezuela, | | | | 5. Buon Giorno-means Good day. |
| the US, Australia, Argentina, Germany, France, Uruguay | | | | 6. Buona Sera-means Good evening. |
| and Canada also help in spreading the language. | | | | 7. Come sta-means How are you? |
| What Makes the Italian Alphabet Unique | | | | 8. Mi dispiace-means Sorry. |
| Most Romance languages have long given up the | | | | 9. Di nuovo-means Again. |
| contrast on long and short consonants in Latin. But just | | | | 10. Scusi-means Excuse me. |
| like most Romance languages, Italian also has a distinct | | | | 11. Grazie-means Thank you. |
| stress. Italian is considered to be the closest language | | | | 12. Buon appetite-means Bon appetite. |
| that would resemble the dead language-Latin. Its lexical | | | | Seven Days of the Week |
| similarity to French is at 89%; 87% for Catalan; | | | | Monday-Lunedi |
| Sardinian is at 85%; Spanish is at 82%; 77% with the | | | | Tuesday-Martedi |
| Romanian language and 52% with Maltese. | | | | Wednesday-Mercoledi |
| Referred to as il parlar gentile or the gentle language | | | | Thursday-Giovedi |
| by its speakers, Italian continues to make use of the | | | | Friday-Venerdi |
| Latin alphabet on majority of its words. The standard | | | | Saturday-Sabato |
| Italian alphabet does not have the letters J, K, W, X | | | | Sunday-Domenica |
| and Y. But nowadays, X is quite common in some | | | | Counting Up to Twenty |
| words, so do words that have the extra letter- J. J is | | | | 1. Uno |
| often read as I in most Italian words and is evident on | | | | 2. Due |
| the names of places like Bojano (pronounced | | | | 3. Tre |
| Bo-ya-no), Joppolo (Iopolo) or Jesi (Iesi). | | | | 4. Quattro |
| J is now discouraged in modern Italian and is no longer | | | | 5. Cinque |
| a part of the contemporary Italian alphabet. The | | | | 6. Sei |
| current alphabet now has 21 letters with each of these | | | | 7. Sette |
| letters having an Italian equivalent such as in the case | | | | 8. Otto |
| of gi for j; c or ch for k; s, ss, or cs for x; u or v for w; | | | | 9. Nove |
| and i for y. | | | | 10. Dieci |
| Accents are very important with the Italian language. It | | | | 11. Undici |
| is evident on the acute accent that is being used on | | | | 12. Dodici |
| the letter E (for example: perché). The grave | | | | 13. Tredici |
| accent is used in words like (té for tea). This | | | | 14. Quattrodici |
| same accent is used on the letters A, I, O, and U to | | | | 15. Quindici |
| make the stress fall on the final vowel of a certain | | | | 16. Sedici |
| word (such as in gioventú meaning youth). | | | | 17. Diciassette |
| H is often silent when used in most words like ho, hai, | | | | 18. Diciotto |
| hanno, or ha; Z is read with a dz or ts sound (/dz/ or | | | | 19. Diciannove |
| ts/). Thus, the word Zanzara is read as dzan'dzara | | | | 20. |
| (meaning mosquito) and the word nazione is read as | | | | |