Killer Bs

Italian is a chunky, chewy language. Unlike French or Portuguese or Chinese, which have lots of soft consonants and nasal vowels, Italian tends to be rhythmic and choppy, with most letters pronounced. You know, tortellini, carpaccio.

Place names are great. There are a lot of cities, town, and villages in this old land. And only 20 some letters. So you get a lot of permutations that sound pretty similar. For some reason Varese has several nearby towns that begin with the letter "B." They're confusing to learn but fun to try to pronounce. They include:

Barasso
Buguggiate
Brebbia
Bobbiate
Besozzo
Busto (a little too far from here to count in this group, too cool a name to ignore)
Bardello
Bregazzano

. . . and my current favorite

Bizzozero