LingoDrop
Italian · Pronunciation Guide
How do you pronounce "aprire" in Italian?
ah-PREE-reh, stress in the middle, rhyming with "free" or "tree." In IPA: /aˈpri.re/. The "pr" cluster is pronounced as one tight unit straight into the vowel, with nothing squeezed in between.
Written as three syllables, a, pri, and re, each fully voiced apart from the stress on "pri." English cognates like "aperture" put the emphasis differently, which can throw off where the stress lands here.
Listen: aprire
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Sound it out
The spelling is entirely regular, so this one comes down to keeping the "pr" cluster tight and placing the stress correctly, rather than decoding anything hidden in the letters.
Hear it in a sentence
Apri la porta, per favore.
Open the door, please.
Listen: Apri la porta, per favore.
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"Apri la porta, per favore" uses the informal "tu" imperative, "apri," a direct command form appropriate with friends, family, or anyone else you'd address informally. The formal imperative would instead be "Apra la porta, per favore," used with a stranger or in a more official context.
Adding "per favore" softens the directness of the imperative, turning a bare command into a polite request — a small addition that matters, since an imperative without it can otherwise sound abrupt in Italian, much as in English.
Where English speakers slip
The English cognate "aperture" carries its stress differently, and that can pull learners toward the wrong syllable, saying "A-pri-re" instead of the correct "a-PRI-re," stressed in the middle.
English speakers also tend to insert a faint vowel between p and r, a habit carried over from words like "apparent," producing "ah-puh-REE-reh." Italian keeps "pr" as one tight, immediate cluster with nothing between the two consonants.