LingoDrop
Italian · Pronunciation Guide
How do you pronounce "tu" in Italian?
TOO, a single clean syllable. In IPA: /tu/.
Just one syllable, one consonant and one vowel, about as simple as Italian pronunciation gets. There's no stress decision to make since there's only one syllable to stress.
Listen: tu
Free browser voice. Hear it read by a real native speaker inside the LingoDrop app.
Sound it out
There's genuinely nothing hidden in this word's spelling, both letters do exactly what you'd expect. The only adjustment for an English speaker is in how the consonant is made, not the vowel.
Hear it in a sentence
Tu sei molto gentile.
You are very kind.
Listen: Tu sei molto gentile.
Free browser voice. Hear it read by a real native speaker inside the LingoDrop app.
"Tu" is the informal way to say "you" to one person, reserved for friends, family, peers, children, and generally anyone you'd be on a first-name basis with. Addressing a stranger, an elder, or someone in a professional context calls for the formal "Lei" instead, which takes a different verb form entirely.
As in "Tu sei molto gentile," Italian subject pronouns are optional since the verb ending already marks the person, so adding "tu" here emphasizes the subject, singling out "you specifically" rather than just stating a fact about kindness in general.
Where English speakers slip
The main mistake is making the t the same way English does, with the tongue touching the gum ridge just behind the teeth and a small puff of air released afterward. Italian t is dental, tongue against the teeth themselves, and unaspirated, so it should sound noticeably crisper and drier than the English t in "too."
The other slip is adding a glide to the vowel, turning "tu" into something closer to "tyoo," the way English sometimes pronounces u after t (as in a careful pronunciation of "tune"). Italian u never picks up that y-glide, it stays a pure, single vowel sound.