Stress / Accento Tonico

　　Usually, Italian words are stressed on the next–to–the–last syllable.

　　amico friend

　　foglia leaf

　　Milano Milan

　　nipote nephew

　　padre father

　　parlare to speak

　　signorina Miss

　　studiare to study

　　telefonare to telephone

　　uomo man

　　When the final –e is dropped from a word, as happens with some masculine titles when they are directly followed by a proper name, the position of the stress remains unchanged.

　　dottore doctor

　　dottor Nardi Doctor Nardi

　　professore professor

　　professor Pace professor Pace

　　When words are stressed on the last vowel, they always have a written accent over that vowel.

　　cioè namely

　　città city

　　perchè because

　　però however

　　tassì taxi

　　università university

　　venerdì Friday

　　virtù virtue

　　It is useful to remember that open e and o occur only in stressed syllables.

　　automobile automobile

　　medico physician

　　nobile noble

　　telefono telephone

　　Note: The written accent is used with a few monosyllables in order to distinguish them from others that have the same spelling but a different meaning.

　　dà gives

　　da from

　　è is

　　e and

　　là there

　　la the; it; her

　　né nor

　　ne some

　　sé himself, herself

　　se if

　　sì yes

　　si oneself