LingoDrop
Italian · Pronunciation Guide
How do you pronounce "potere" in Italian?
poh-TEH-reh, stress on the middle syllable. In IPA: /poˈte.re/.
Three even syllables, po-te-re, each pronounced in full and with its own clear beat — no fading toward the end the way English unstressed syllables do.
Listen: potere
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Sound it out
The main challenge is stress placement, not the individual sounds: English default instincts often push stress toward the front of a word, but Italian wants it squarely on the second syllable here.
Hear it in a sentence
Puoi aiutarmi?
Can you help me?
Listen: Puoi aiutarmi?
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"Puoi aiutarmi?" doesn't actually use the infinitive potere — it uses puoi, the informal tu-form, which is what you'll hear far more often than the dictionary form in everyday requests for help. Potere is one of the most irregular Italian verbs, and its stem changes shape almost completely across its conjugations (posso, puoi, può, possiamo…).
The tu-form here signals an informal register, appropriate with friends, family, or peers; asking the same favor of a stranger or in a formal setting would call for Può aiutarmi? instead, with no change in meaning beyond politeness.
Where English speakers slip
The most common slip is stressing the first syllable, "POH-teh-reh," by analogy with English words that front-load stress. Italian potere puts the stress on the second syllable, te, not the first.
The second slip is turning that stressed e into a glide, saying something closer to "po-TAY-reh." Italian e never diphthongizes the way English "ay" does — it stays a single, pure vowel from start to finish.