Differences between English and Italian
Italian is a Romance language whereas English is a Germanic language.
Both English and Italian are however part of the larger Indo-European language family.
Italian words are made up of the same 26 letters as English, although the letters j, k, w, x and y are
considered foreign letters.
Some words, like the names of days, months and languages, are capitalised in English but not in
Italian.
Italian learners typically have problems with the vowel differences in minimal pairs such as sheep/
ship, leave/live, cot/coat. The pronunciation of consonants includes difficulties with words
containing the letters th such as in this, that, father, think. Another problem is the pronunciation of
h. Italians often fail to aspirate the h in words such as house, hill, hotel. Furthermore, Italian
learners tend to affix a short vowel sound to English words ending with a consonant because most
Italian words end with a vowel.
Italian has 5 inflected tense forms: present, simple past, imperfect, future and conditional, whereas
compound tenses are formed with auxiliaries. The English auxiliary do has no equivalent in Italian,
which leads to mistakes such as: What you do? or I no like Italian food. Italian does not use the
perfect tenses to make a connection to the present in the same way English does. This leads to
interference errors such as: I live in the States since 1999. Shades of meaning which are conveyed
in English by varying the modal verb (must/should/ought to/might/want to, etc.) are typically
conveyed in Italian by an inflected form of the verb dovere (must). This often results in a overuse of
must when Italians speak English.
In English the meaning of a close is to a large degree dependent on the order of words (typically
Subject Verb Object). Italian, being a more inflected language, allows greater variations in word
order. Furthermore, adjectives in Italian usually follow the noun, they do not precede it as in
English. These differences can result in Italian speakers of English using an incorrect or non-
standard syntax.
Italian learners also frequently have problems with the correct use of articles in English. Although
both the definite and indefinite article exist in both languages, they are often used differently. As a
result, it is common to hear sentences such as: Is he a teacher? or The health is the most important
thing in life.
