How to Pronounce 'Sbagliato': Italian Pronunciation Guide

Q: How do you pronounce sbagliato in Italian?

sbagliato is pronounced with the stress described below. In IPA it is written /zbaʎˈʎa.to/. It means “wrong.” zba- LYAH -toh, stress on the second syllable, with the "gli" landing as one soft, melted sound rather than separate letters. In IPA: /zbaʎˈʎa.to/ . The initial s comes out voiced, more like a "z" than an "s."

How do you pronounce "sbagliato" in Italian?

zba-LYAH-toh, stress on the second syllable, with the "gli" landing as one soft, melted sound rather than separate letters. In IPA: /zbaʎˈʎa.to/. The initial s comes out voiced, more like a "z" than an "s."

sbagliato /zbaʎˈʎa.to/

Three syllables — sba, glia, to — with the stress on the middle one. "Glia" is a single beat, not two: the gli digraph collapses into one melted consonant before sliding into the a.

Listen: sbagliato

Free browser voice. Hear it read by a real native speaker inside the LingoDrop app.

Sound it out

Two spelling rules stack up in this one word: s automatically voices to a "z" sound before b, and "gli" represents a single palatal sound with no English equivalent, roughly the "lli" in "million" but pushed further back in the mouth.

s Voiced to a "z" sound because it sits before the voiced consonant b — Italian s always shifts this way before b, d, g, l, m, n, r, or v.

ba A plain, unstressed "bah," quick and light.

glia The stressed syllable, and the trickiest sound in the word: gli is a single melted consonant, close to the "lli" in "million" but made with the tongue pressed flatter against the roof of the mouth, followed immediately by "ah."

to A short, unstressed "toh" to close the word out.

Hear it in a sentence

Il numero è sbagliato.

The number is wrong.

Listen: Il numero è sbagliato.

Free browser voice. Hear it read by a real native speaker inside the LingoDrop app.

"Sbagliato" is the past participle of the verb "sbagliare" (to make a mistake, to get something wrong), used here as an adjective describing "il numero" (the number) — a very common pattern in Italian, where past participles routinely double as descriptive adjectives, much like English "broken" or "mistaken." Because it's agreeing with a masculine singular noun it keeps the -o ending; it would become "sbagliata" for a feminine noun.

It's the standard way to flag an error out loud — a wrong phone number, a wrong turn, a wrong answer — and pairs naturally with "giusto" as its direct opposite.

Where English speakers slip

English speakers almost always keep the s unvoiced, saying "sba-" the way it looks rather than shifting it toward "zba-." This voicing rule is automatic and non-negotiable in Italian: any s directly before b, d, g, l, m, n, r, or v comes out as a z, even though the spelling never changes to show it.

The "gli" sound causes the most trouble, since English has nothing quite like it. Learners often substitute a plain "l" or an English "y," when the real sound sits between the two: the blade of the tongue spreads against the hard palate the way it does for "million," but held and released as a single, slightly heavier consonant.