Transformation of X into Italian

The more you study a language the more your brain is able to recognize patterns that repeat themselves. That's a important learning process as it can facilitate communication and shows that Italian language is not too far away from English (or other languages).

Today I would like to focus on the letter "X". This letter "ics" is not considered part of the Italian alphabet and it only appears in loanwords. Even though X was present in ancient Latin it disappeared in Italian before the end of the Vulgar Latin period.

But there are some patterns we can follow to translate words with X from English into Italian. This will help us to expand our vocabulary and enter in the morphology of the new language.

English words with an internal X become words with "S" or double "S in Italian. Here some examples:

example - esempio

context - contesto

anxious - ansioso

exactly - esattamente

saxophone - sassofono

explore - esplorare

extinct - estinto

oxygen - ossigeno

sexism - sessismo

anorexia - anoressia

anxiety - ansia

When the X is at the end of a word or is in the middle but followed by "CE" in English it usually becomes "CE" or "CCE" in Italian:

index - indice

appendix - appendice

fenix - fenice

excellent - eccellente

except - eccetto

excellence - eccellenza

exception - eccezione

I hope you will find these observations useful for your learning process!

Grazie,
Ciao!
Linda