LingoDrop
Italian · Pronunciation Guide
How do you pronounce "chiamare" in Italian?
kyah-MAH-reh, stress in the middle, rhyming with "ma" said twice. In IPA: /kjaˈma.re/. That opening "chia" is a hard "k" sound plus a quick y-glide, never a soft "sh" or "ch."
Written as three syllables, chia, ma, and re, with "chia" itself blending a consonant, a glide, and a vowel into one fast syllable rather than two separate beats.
Listen: chiamare
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Sound it out
This is the mirror image of the rule behind "ciao": there, "ci" before a vowel makes a soft "ch" sound. Here, "chi" before a vowel does the opposite, the h keeps the c hard, giving a "k" sound, with the i just gliding through as a "y" on the way to the next vowel.
Hear it in a sentence
Chiamo un taxi.
I'm calling a taxi.
Listen: Chiamo un taxi.
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"Chiamo un taxi" uses the plain present tense for an action happening right now, matching the English progressive "I'm calling" without needing any extra "-ing"-equivalent construction. Italian generally doesn't distinguish "I call" from "I'm calling" the way English does.
Watch the difference between "chiamare" (to call someone or something) and the reflexive "chiamarsi" (to be named/called) — "Chiamo un taxi" uses the first, non-reflexive form, while "Mi chiamo Marco" uses the second. Mixing them up is one of the most common beginner errors with this verb.
Where English speakers slip
Learners who've just internalized "ciao" — where "ci" makes a soft "ch" sound — sometimes overcorrect and assume "chi" works the same way, saying "SHAH-mare" or "CHAH-mare." It's actually the opposite rule: the h after c in "chi" keeps the c hard, so the correct sound is "KYAH-mare," with a hard k.
The other slip is separating "chi" and "a" into two distinct syllables, "kee-AH-mare," instead of blending them into one fast "kya." The i here is a glide, not a full vowel of its own.