How to Pronounce 'La foto (f.)': Italian Pronunciation Guide

Q: How do you pronounce la foto (f.) in Italian?

la foto (f.) is pronounced with the stress described below. In IPA it is written /ˈfɔ.to/. It means “photo.” FOH-toh , stress on the first syllable, with an open "aw"-leaning o. In IPA: /ˈfɔ.to/ .

How do you pronounce "la foto (f.)" in Italian?

FOH-toh, stress on the first syllable, with an open "aw"-leaning o. In IPA: /ˈfɔ.to/.

la foto (f.) /ˈfɔ.to/

Two syllables, fo and to, both short and crisp, with no trailing glide on either vowel the way English sometimes adds.

Listen: la foto (f.)

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Sound it out

A short word, but the o is a genuinely open Italian o, not the closed, slightly diphthongized o that English "photo" uses.

fo The stressed syllable, an open "faw"-leaning "foh," closer to the vowel in English "paw" than to the tighter o in English "photo."

to A short, unstressed "toh," clean and quick, no added "w" glide at the end.

Hear it in a sentence

Ti mando una foto.

I'll send you a photo.

Listen: Ti mando una foto.

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"Foto" is feminine and, unusually, invariable, it's short for "fotografia" and keeps that word's gender without taking the regular -a → -e plural pattern; both "la foto" and "le foto" end in -o. The example, "Ti mando una foto," puts the indirect object pronoun "ti" (to you) before the verb "mando" (I send), the same pronoun-before-verb order seen in "mi presti una penna."

Using the simple present "mando" rather than a future tense ("ti manderò una foto") is the normal, casual way to announce something you're about to do right now, functioning almost like "I'm sending you a photo" in English, an immediate, near-future present rather than a strict statement about right this instant.

Where English speakers slip

The most common mistake is closing and lengthening the stressed o, saying something like "FOH-toh" with the same rounded, glide-ending vowel English "photo" uses. Italian's stressed o here is open, shorter, and has no "w"-glide tacked onto the end, it stops cleanly rather than rounding off.

A second slip is treating "foto" as a regular feminine noun and pluralizing it to "fote," following the usual -a to -e pattern. Because "foto" is a shortened form of "fotografia," it stays invariable in the plural, "le foto," not "le fote," one of a small set of clipped Italian nouns (like "la moto," "l'auto") that don't take a regular plural ending.