LingoDrop
Italian · Pronunciation Guide
How do you pronounce "prima" in Italian?
PREE-mah, with a crisp, pure "ee" in the first syllable and a short, open second syllable. In IPA: /ˈpri.ma/. Both vowels stay short and clean, with none of the drawl English gives similar-looking words.
Two syllables, pri and ma, with stress on the first. Each vowel keeps its full, clear value all the way through, unlike English syllables that often fade at the edges.
Listen: prima
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Sound it out
The spelling is deceptively close to English words like "prime" and "primary," which is exactly the trap: English pulls that first i toward a long "eye" sound, but Italian i is always a short, bright "ee," no matter what word it's in.
Hear it in a sentence
Chiama prima di venire.
Call before coming.
Listen: Chiama prima di venire.
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"Chiama prima di venire" uses the construction prima di + infinitive, Italian's standard way of saying "before doing something." "Chiama" is the informal tu command form of chiamare (to call), so the whole sentence is a casual instruction you'd give a friend or family member, not the kind of request you'd phrase this bluntly with a stranger.
"Prima" on its own just means "before" or "first" as a general time marker; it only locks onto a specific action once "di + infinitive" is attached, the way this example pairs it with "venire" (to come).
Where English speakers slip
The most common slip is reading the i the English way, turning "PREE-mah" into something closer to "PRY-mah," as if the word rhymed with "prime" plus "ah." Italian i is never a diphthong: it's always the short, forward "ee" heard in "see," regardless of the consonants around it.
The second trap is letting that final a shrink toward an English schwa, the way an unstressed vowel disappears at the end of words like "sofa." Italian doesn't reduce unstressed vowels this way, so the final a in "prima" needs to stay a full, open "ah" all the way to the end.