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Italian · Pronunciation Guide
How do you pronounce "ieri" in Italian?
YEH-ree, opening with a quick "y" glide rather than two separate vowels. In IPA: /ˈjɛ.ri/. The "ie" collapses into one syllable, not two.
Two syllables, ie and ri, but the "ie" isn't two separate vowel sounds — the i glides quickly into the e, forming one combined "yeh" sound before moving into the second syllable.
Listen: ieri
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Sound it out
The "ie" at the start looks like it should be two vowel beats, the way English readers might expect from a word like "diet." In Italian, unstressed i before another vowel routinely collapses into a glide, a "y" sound, rather than staying a full vowel — so "ieri" opens with a single "yeh," not "ee-eh."
Hear it in a sentence
Ieri sono uscito con gli amici.
Yesterday I went out with friends.
Listen: Ieri sono uscito con gli amici.
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"Sono uscito" is passato prossimo built with "essere" rather than "avere," which is the rule for verbs of motion like "uscire" (to go out) — and because the auxiliary is "essere," the past participle "uscito" has to agree in gender and number with the subject, here masculine singular. A woman saying the same sentence would need "uscita" instead, a distinction with no equivalent in the English past tense "went out."
"Ieri" opens the sentence to set the time frame up front, a common position for time adverbs in Italian, functioning exactly like "yesterday" does when it leads an English sentence.
Where English speakers slip
English spelling trains readers to treat "ie" as a single vowel unit pronounced "ee" (as in "believe") or sometimes "eh" (as in "friend"), so it's tempting to read Italian "ie" the same way and drop the initial "y" glide entirely, saying "EH-ree." Italian "ie" keeps both elements: a quick "y" sound followed by the vowel, not a single simplified vowel.
The opposite mistake is giving the "i" its own full syllable, saying "ee-EH-ree" in three beats. Since the "i" here isn't stressed and comes right before another vowel, it shortens into a glide rather than standing on its own — Italian only gives full syllable weight to the stressed "e" that follows it.