The Italian Alphabet

The Italian alphabet has 21 native letters, plus five extra letters that appear only in loanwords and foreign names. This is fewer than the English 26 and one of the visible signs of how compact and self-consistent Italian spelling is. Every letter has a fixed name and, with very few exceptions, a fixed sound.

This page covers the full inventory, the names of every letter (including the famously silent h, called acca), and the four jobs h still performs in modern Italian even though it makes no sound.

1. The 21 native letters

The Italian alphabet, in order:

Note that Italian, like Spanish, calls letters by short, vowel-friendly names — usually consonant + vowel (bi, di, pi, ti) or vowel + double-consonant + vowel (effe, elle, emme, enne, erre, esse). This makes spelling words aloud feel quick and rhythmic.

2. The five borrowed letters

Italian formally recognizes five additional letters that appear in loanwords from other languages. They are not used in native Italian vocabulary.

These letters are increasingly common in modern Italian as the language absorbs more international vocabulary — particularly from English. Younger Italians often refer to w as doppia vu (the order with doppia first), while older speakers tend to say vu doppia. Both are correct.

In some older Italian texts and in regional dialects, j appears in native words too — Jugoslavia, Jacopo, the surname Iuvara sometimes spelled Juvara. In modern standard Italian, this usage has retreated; j is now mostly limited to loans.

3. The silent H — Italian's most overworked silent letter

The letter h (acca) is always silent in pure Italian words. There are no exceptions in native vocabulary. Ho is pronounced /ɔ/, exactly like o. Hai is /ai/, exactly like ai. Hanno is /ˈanno/, exactly like anno.

So why keep it? Italian h has four important orthographic jobs, none of which involve sound.

Job 1: Disambiguating verb forms of avere

Four forms of the verb avere ("to have") are spelled with an h purely to distinguish them from identically-pronounced common words. Without the h, the spellings would collide.

This is the single biggest spelling trap of beginner Italian. Ha and a sound identical, and learners constantly mix them up. The rule: if it's a form of the verb avere, it takes an h. Otherwise, no h. There is no native Italian word other than the verb avere that begins with h.

Job 2: Preserving the hard sound of c and g before e/i

This is the h's second major function. Italian c and g go soft (/tʃ/ and /dʒ/) before e and i. To keep them hard (/k/ and /g/) before those same vowels, you insert a silent h.

For the full system, see Hard vs Soft C and G.

Job 3: Marking exclamations

Italian uses h in some interjections to distinguish them from similarly-spelled words.

These are pronounced as a single short vowel — the h simply marks them as exclamations rather than as the vowels a, o, or e used in their grammatical functions.

Job 4: Loanwords retain their original h

In words borrowed from other languages, the h is preserved in spelling and is sometimes faintly aspirated in careful speech.

In casual speech, even loanwords like hotel are often pronounced without any aspiration — Italian phonology resists initial /h/, and the speaker simply produces the vowel.

4. Spelling words aloud

Italians frequently spell out words letter by letter — over the phone, when writing down a name, or when clarifying an unusual word. The standard practice is to use a city or proper-noun prefix to disambiguate, especially for letters that sound similar.

This city-based spelling alphabet is informal but widely used in everyday conversation, much like English speakers say "B as in boy".

5. The double-consonant convention

Italian writes geminate (long) consonants as two letters — fatto, anno, bello, sette. This is true for almost every consonant: bb, cc, dd, ff, gg, ll, mm, nn, pp, rr, ss, tt, zz. The letters h and q are exceptions — h is always silent and never doubles, and q doubles only in the form cq (acqua, acquisto).

For why double consonants are pronounced longer, see Double Consonants (Geminates).

6. Capitalization basics

Italian capitalizes much less than English. The rules:

• Sentence-initial words are capitalized.
• Proper nouns (names of people, places, brands) are capitalized.
• Days of the week, months, languages, and adjectives of nationality are NOT capitalized: lunedì, gennaio, italiano, spagnolo.
• The pronoun Lei (formal "you") is sometimes capitalized in formal writing, especially in correspondence, to mark respect: La saluto cordialmente "I greet you cordially". This is a stylistic convention, not a grammatical rule.

For the full system, see Capitalization.

Common Mistakes

Key takeaways

• The Italian alphabet has 21 native letters plus 5 borrowed letters (J, K, W, X, Y) used in loanwords.
• Letter names are mostly short and vowel-friendly: a, bi, ci, di, e, effe, gi, acca, i, elle, emme, enne, o, pi, cu, erre, esse, ti, u, vu/vi, zeta.
• The letter h is always silent in native words. It serves four jobs: disambiguating verb forms of avere (ho/o, hai/ai, ha/a, hanno/anno), preserving the hard c and g sounds before e/i (che, chi, ghetto, ghiaccio), marking exclamations (ah, oh, eh), and preserving the original spelling of loanwords (hotel, hobby).
• Borrowed letter names: J = i lunga, K = kappa, W = vu doppia / doppia vu, X = ics, Y = i greca / ipsilon.
• Capitalization is more restrained than in English — days, months, languages, and nationalities are lowercase.
• The single most important alphabet trap for beginners is the h of avere. Ho/o, hai/ai, ha/a, hanno/anno sound identical but mean entirely different things; the h is what distinguishes them.

For the bigger pronunciation picture, see Italian Pronunciation: Overview. For the h in detail, see Silent H. For the c and g alternation, see Hard vs Soft C and G. For the verb avere, see Avere: Present Indicative.