LingoDrop
Italian · Pronunciation Guide
How do you pronounce "credere" in Italian?
KREH-deh-reh, stress on the first syllable. In IPA: /ˈkre.de.re/ — note the stress up front, unlike avere, potere, volere, sapere, dovere, and vedere, which all stress the middle syllable.
Three even syllables, cre-de-re, each fully voiced, with the stress landing right at the start of the word rather than in the middle.
Listen: credere
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Sound it out
This is a different stress pattern from the other -ere verbs in this set. Where avere, potere, and the rest stress their -ere ending, credere pulls the stress forward onto the first syllable — a genuine exception worth flagging.
Hear it in a sentence
Non ti credo.
I don't believe you.
Listen: Non ti credo.
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"Non ti credo" uses credo, the io-form of credere, with ti ("you," informal) as the object — "I don't believe you," a blunt, everyday phrase you'd use with someone you know well. The conjugated form credo also happens to be an English loanword in its own right — a person's "credo" is their set of core beliefs — but the English borrowing is pronounced "KREE-doh," nothing like the Italian original.
Object pronouns like ti sit before the conjugated verb in statements like this, the reverse of English word order ("I don't believe you" vs. "Non ti credo," literally "not you [I] believe").
Where English speakers slip
Having just learned that avere, potere, volere, sapere, dovere, and vedere all stress their middle syllable, it's natural to overapply that pattern here and say "kre-DE-re." Credere breaks the pattern: the stress sits on the first syllable, cre.
The other trap is the English loanword "credo," pronounced "KREE-doh" with a long "ee" and a glided "oh." The Italian conjugated form credo inside this sentence keeps both vowels short, pure, and closed — nothing like its English cousin.