How to Pronounce 'Uscire': Italian Pronunciation Guide

Q: How do you pronounce uscire in Italian?

uscire is pronounced with the stress described below. In IPA it is written /uʃˈʃi.re/. It means “to go out.” oosh-SHEE-reh , with a held, doubled "sh" sound, rhyming with "she." In IPA: /uʃˈʃi.re/ . Even though the spelling has just one s and one c, the sound is a long, lingering "sh," not a quick one.

How do you pronounce "uscire" in Italian?

oosh-SHEE-reh, with a held, doubled "sh" sound, rhyming with "she." In IPA: /uʃˈʃi.re/. Even though the spelling has just one s and one c, the sound is a long, lingering "sh," not a quick one.

uscire /uʃˈʃi.re/

Written as three syllables, u, sci, and re, but the middle one carries a surprise: the "sh" sound it represents is pronounced doubled in length, even though nothing in the spelling doubles it. It's one of the few Italian words where the sound is geminated but the letters aren't.

Listen: uscire

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Sound it out

Two rules stack up here. First, "sc" before i or e makes a single "sh" sound, the same rule behind "prosciutto." Second, in this particular word that "sh" is held noticeably longer than usual, a leftover from the Latin word it comes from — so it's worth learning "uscire" as a specific exception rather than assuming every "sc" behaves identically.

u A short, pure "oo," its own full syllable — not the "yoo" glide English gives a word-initial u, as in "use."

sci A single "sh" sound (the i is silent, just a marker), but held noticeably longer than a normal "sh" — closer to "sh-sh" than a quick "sh." This is the stressed syllable.

re A short, closed "reh" to finish, fully pronounced.

Hear it in a sentence

Usciamo stasera?

Shall we go out tonight?

Listen: Usciamo stasera?

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"Usciamo stasera?" is a casual, common way to propose going out for the evening, structured the same way as "Guardiamo un film?" — a plain statement turned into an invitation by a question mark, with no extra "shall we" required in the Italian itself.

"Uscire" specifically means to leave a place or go outside, whether that's leaving the house, exiting a room, or going out socially — the same verb covers all of those senses, where English sometimes reaches for different words ("go out," "leave," "step out").

Where English speakers slip

English speakers who already know that "sc" before i/e makes a "sh" sound (from words like "prosciutto") usually get the quality of the sound right but say it too briefly, producing a plain "oo-SHEE-reh." In "uscire," that "sh" is genuinely held longer, closer to a doubled consonant, which is easy to miss since nothing in the spelling signals it.

The other slip is turning the initial "u" into an English "yoo" glide, as in "use" or "unicorn." Italian "u" is always a pure, short "oo," with no y-sound sneaking in front of it.