But how difficult it is to say Cagliari: that "gl", for many, is impossible

The Italian city whose name is the most difficult for foreigners to pronounce? It's Florence. But, at the top of the original and curious ranking, there is also Cagliari.

It was compiled by Preply, the global language learning platform, which compared the volumes of listening to the pronunciations of Italian cities, identifying those that require more effort for learning.

At the top of the rankings, as mentioned, is the Tuscan capital, with 285,000 listeners.

Florence, in particular, explains Preply, can create problems for Chinese speakers. The Chinese, in fact, in many cases translate the terms on a phonetic basis to adapt them to their language and that especially for the names of the cities they take the English translation (Florence) as the initial reference for the transliteration.

Next, we find Rome, with 157,000 pronunciation listens and Bologna, with 127,000 listens: in this case, the presence of the digraph <gn> could cause problems, which can be particularly complex for English speakers, due to their tendency to pronounce two letters separately or add an /i/.

In fourth place is the Sardinian capital (104,000 listens): in the word Cagliari, it is undoubtedly the trigram <gli> (/ʎ/) that makes pronunciation difficult , to be pronounced with a soft sound and which is often complex even for Italian native speakers who tend to replace it in speech with /l/ or /j/.

Followed by Como (81,000 listens), known for its Lake, loved by Hollywood stars such as George Clooney: in this case the problems could be related to doubts about the opening or closing of the first vowel and the risk of accenting the last vowel , creating confusion with the piece of furniture, the dresser.

As far as the regions are concerned, the data analyzed by Preply reveal that Friuli Venezia Giulia appears in first place, with 54,000 listeners : the reason could be linked to the fact that the name is made up of three words, including the toponym Venice which appears in the top 10 most difficult to pronounce cities.

This is followed by Puglia (48,000 listeners), whose pronunciation, due to the trigram <gli> (/ʎ/), can cause difficulties for Italians themselves, who in some cases tend to replace it in speech with /l/ or /j /.

In third place is Sicily, on the other hand, with 30,000 plays: the island has always been in the international spotlight, having been the backdrop for films and TV series, including the second season of the award-winning "The White Lotus" which sees protagonists moving among the architectural and landscape beauties of Noto, Cefalù, Palermo and Taormina.

(Unioneonline/lf)