A complete guide to achieving professionally acceptable levels of diction in Italian, German, and French, this handbook is written for singers whose native language is American English. Beginning with an overview of the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA), the book goes on to provide, for each language, a list of IPA symbols corresponding to its sounds, explaining the pronunciation of specific sounds and sound combinations and concentrating in the most common pitfalls for American singers. The book is illustrated with numerous musical examples and includes many exercises.