LingoDrop
Italian · Pronunciation Guide
How do you pronounce "il vestito (m.)" in Italian?
veh-STEE-toh, stress on the middle syllable. In IPA: /veˈstito/. The st stays a clean, unaspirated cluster, and the stressed i is held long.
Three syllables, ve-sti-to, stress on "sti," held noticeably longer than the two short syllables around it.
Listen: il vestito (m.)
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Sound it out
"Vestito" is literally the past participle of "vestire" (to dress) used as a noun, "a dressed thing," the everyday way Italian arrives at the word for a dress or suit; participles turning into nouns like this is common across the language. The "st" cluster in the middle follows the same clean, unaspirated pattern already seen in "stella," with nothing added to it.
Hear it in a sentence
Il vestito è molto elegante.
The dress is very elegant.
Listen: Il vestito è molto elegante.
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"Il vestito è molto elegante" uses "elegante," one of the adjectives that has just a single form for both masculine and feminine singular (ending in -e), unlike "alto/alta" seen earlier with "l'albero è molto alto." That single-form pattern applies to a large class of common Italian adjectives and is worth flagging early.
"Vestito" itself covers a wider range of meaning than any single English word, dress, suit, or outfit, depending on context, since it just describes whatever someone is wearing as a complete garment.
Where English speakers slip
English speakers often aspirate the t after s out of habit, adding a small puff of air the way English "stop" or "steak" would. Italian t after s stays completely unaspirated and crisp, with no extra breath on it.
The second slip is shifting the stress to the first syllable, VEH-sti-to, likely by analogy with the unrelated English word "vest," which shares a root but not a stress pattern or meaning, "vestito" refers to the whole garment, not just a vest.