LingoDrop
Italian · Pronunciation Guide
How do you pronounce "molto" in Italian?
MOHL-toh, with MOHL rhyming with "coal" but cut short and never softened into a glide, and a short "toh" to finish. In IPA: /ˈmol.to/.
Two syllables, mol and to, both crisp and short — the o in the first syllable stays a clean, closed "oh" rather than sliding toward the vowel in English "moat" or "mole."
Listen: molto
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Sound it out
"Molto" is short and simple to sound out, but it's worth noticing how it behaves grammatically, since it looks like an ordinary adjective yet often functions completely differently.
Hear it in a sentence
Questo caffè è molto caldo.
This coffee is very hot.
Listen: Questo caffè è molto caldo.
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In this sentence, "molto" is working as an adverb meaning "very," modifying the adjective "caldo" (hot) — in that role it never changes form, no matter the gender or number of what's being described, exactly like English "very."
That's worth contrasting with "molto" as an adjective, where it does agree and change ("molta pazienza," "molti amici," "molte persone") — this example only shows the fixed, adverbial "molto," so it's easy to mistakenly assume the word never changes at all.
Where English speakers slip
English speakers often let the o drift toward a diphthong, saying something like "MOHL-toh" with a gliding "oh-oo" sound, the way English "mole" or "coal" naturally glide. Italian's o here is a single, pure vowel with no glide at the end.
The other common mistake is trying to make "molto" agree with the noun it's near, adding an -a or -i ending by analogy with adjectives like "alto" or "basso." When "molto" modifies an adjective rather than a noun directly, as in "molto caldo," it stays fixed in its base form — no agreement at all.