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Italian · Pronunciation Guide
How do you pronounce "il tempo (m.)" in Italian?
TEHM-poh, with an open "eh" like in "bet," not the tighter vowel of English "temp." In IPA: /ˈtɛm.po/.
Two syllables, tem and po, stressed on the first, with po said briskly and without any glide.
Listen: il tempo (m.)
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Sound it out
Italian distinguishes two different e sounds — open and closed — that regular spelling never signals, so you mostly learn them word by word. "Tempo" uses the open one, the same vowel quality as English "bet" or "let."
Hear it in a sentence
Non ho tempo.
I don't have time.
Listen: Non ho tempo.
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"Non ho tempo" uses avere (to have), not essere (to be), for the idiom "to have time" — exactly parallel to English "I don't have time," so this is one construction where the two languages map neatly onto each other, unlike many other avere idioms (avere fame, avere sonno) that don't translate as literally.
Because "tempo" is masculine, any adjective describing it — "poco tempo" (little time), "molto tempo" (a lot of time) — takes masculine agreement, worth keeping in mind since "time" itself has no gender in English to signal this.
Where English speakers slip
Because "tempo" is already a familiar English word (the musical term for pace), most of the pronunciation transfers fine — but English speakers still tend to add the diphthong glide English gives most final o's, turning "poh" into something closer to "poh-oo." Italian o stays a single, pure vowel all the way through.
The other habit is tightening the first vowel into the closed e used in words like "sera," instead of the open "eh" that "tempo" actually calls for — a distinction Italian spelling gives no visual clue about, so it has to be learned by ear.