LingoDrop
Italian · Pronunciation Guide
How do you pronounce "dormire" in Italian?
dor-MEE-reh, stress in the middle, rhyming with "see" or "free." In IPA: /dorˈmi.re/. The r in "dor" is a quick tap, keeping the vowel short rather than drawn out.
Written as three syllables, dor, mi, and re, evenly weighted apart from the stress on "mi." English cognates like "dormant" and "dormitory" put the stress up front, which is exactly the wrong place for the Italian verb.
Listen: dormire
Free browser voice. Hear it read by a real native speaker inside the LingoDrop app.
Sound it out
The spelling is fully regular, so this one's really about resisting an English cognate's stress pattern, plus keeping that first vowel short instead of the drawn-out "or" English gives words like "door."
Hear it in a sentence
Vado a dormire presto.
I'm going to sleep early.
Listen: Vado a dormire presto.
Free browser voice. Hear it read by a real native speaker inside the LingoDrop app.
"Vado a dormire presto" shows the "andare + a + infinitive" construction, Italian's standard way of expressing "going to do something." That linking "a" is required before the infinitive and has no direct one-word equivalent in the English translation, which just runs "going to sleep" together.
"Presto" here means "early" (soon), not the musical "presto" (fast) English speakers might expect — it's a common false-friend trap worth flagging alongside the pronunciation itself.
Where English speakers slip
The English cognates "dormant" and "dormitory" both stress their first syllable, which pulls many learners toward "DOR-mi-re." Italian stresses the second syllable instead, "dor-MI-re," the regular pattern for "-ire" verbs.
The other habit is giving "dor" the long, r-colored vowel of English "door" or "dorm." Italian "o" here is short and clipped, with the r just a light, quick tap rather than a vowel-bending glide.