Ciao Studenti!

Today I want to talk to you about how to do the spelling in Italian.

Have you ever had to spell your name? It happens to me very often, even in Italian, because I have a long name that consists of three parts and is often misunderstood.

If you are in Italy, it may happen that at university, in your language school, or in a public office they ask you to do the spelling of your name or your hometown.

In Italian, if we want to do the spelling of a new word or of the name of a person we use the names of Italian cities that begin with the letter that we want to spell.

For example, if I have to spell the name Luis on the phone I will do it as follows:

L – Livorno

U – Udine

I – Imola

S – Savona

Another example with a Chinese name:

Meiqi:

M – Milan

E – Empoli

I – Imola

Q – quadro

I – Imola

Here is a list of some Italian or foreign cities that we use to do spelling:

A – Ancona

B – Bologna

C – Como

D – Domodossola

E – Empoli

F – Firenze

G – Genova

H – Hotel

I – Imola

J – jeans

K – kiwi

L – Livorno

M – Milan

N – Naples

O – Otranto

P – Palermo

Q – Quadro

R – Rome

S – Savona

T – Turin

U – Udine

V – Verona

W – Washington

X – xylophone

Y – yogurt

Z – Zurich

As you may have noticed for letters of foreign origin (K, X, Y) you can use words of common use.

I recommend memorizing the spelling of the Italian alphabet. The best way to do this is, to take random words and spell or dictate them to a fellow student. You could spell your first and last name using the names of the cities:

For example:

My name is Gong Li

– G as Genva, O as Otranto, N as Naples, G as Genoa, L as Livorno, I as Imola.

I hope this post is useful to you.

Practice spelling and don’t miss the next article.

A presto studenti,