Learn Interlingue - Lesson 1

The alphabet comprises 26 letters, y fulfilling a double role as consonant and vowel.

Vowels

| a | as in father |
| e | as in bed or yes |
| i | as in machine |
| o | as in door |
| u | as in rule |
| y | y is a consonant after a vowel or beginning a word before a vowel, otherwise is pronounced as i |

Consonants

The 21 consonants are b, c, d, f, g, h, j, k, l, m, n, p, r, s, t, v, w, x, y, z.

The consonants are pronounced as in English, with the following exceptions

| c | hard as "k" before a, o, u, or any consonant; soft as "ts" before e, i, y |

| g | hard as in gold before a, o, u, or any consonant, soft as in general before e, i, y |

| t | as "ts" before ie, ia, io, iu, and not preceded by an s |

Stress

The stress falls on the vowel before the last consonant.

The plural endings [-(e)s] and the adverbial endings [-bil, -ic, -im, - ul, -um] remain unstressed. Further exceptions not falling under any of these rules are marked with the accent ´.

The length of the vowels varies. Unstressed syllables have the short vowel [a in fan, e in bend, i in fit, o in drop, u in full]. Stressed vowels followed by two consonants are short. The rest are long except in some short words, mainly prepositions.

Diphthongs

| au |
| ay |
| ey |
| oy |
| eu |