Uh-MAHZH-in HAH-ving tu reed this n-TIRE R-tuh-kul as RIT-en. E-vin if ue were ah NAY-tiv IN-glish SPEE-ker, it wood feel az if ue were bak in SEH-kond graid, HAH-ving bin kahld on by your TEE-cher to reed a-LAHWD in front of the klass, lab-ORE-ee-us-lee SLOG-ging your whey thru EV-ree chunk of LET-erz rep-ree-ZEN-ting in-duh-VID-jew-al SIL-ah-bulz.

But that's exactly what's expected when Italian is represented (in English) using pronunciation respelling, a notation used to convey the pronunciation of words.

Menus, especially in the U.S., oftentimes attempt to replicate the sound of an Italian term—at least how it sounds to an English ear. Pronunciation respelling is also often found in newspaper articles to indicate the pronunciation of Italian last names or terms referring to political events or in the cultural zeitgeist. The results can be somewhat cumbersome and ambiguous.

You Say Pomodoro, I Say...
Pronunciation respelling is sometimes used to indicate the pronunciation of foreign words or those whose spelling is irregular or not sufficient to deduce the pronunciation. In such cases, typeface, punctuation, or letter case may also be used to indicate stress or syllabication: prosciutto becomes (pro-SHOOT-toe) and pasta e fagioli becomes (PAH-stah eh faj-YOH-lee).

This offers a sometimes intuitive alternative to systems like the International Phonetic Alphabet (compare to the Italian Phonetic Alphabet), which offer precise descriptions but need to be learned. For foreign languages including Italian, though, it is even more problematic since it relies on the writer's encoding mapping to the same phonemes as the reader's.

For example, it also cannot account for rolling R's in Italian, a sound that's absent in English.

If you already have even a rudimentary grasp of how to pronounce Italian, then phonetic respelling will only slow you down and seem somewhat comical. It's only because you already know the rhythm and intonation that the respelling might make any sense. And if you are new to Italian, well, sounding out the unknown words in what amounts to yet another coded language will only put more distance between you and the ultimate goal—which is to be able to pronounce Italian like a native.

GLEE-ful
Learning to pronounce Italian terms that contain the letter combination 'gli' (aglio, figlio, guinzaglio, nascondiglio, sveglio), can bring tears of joy to beginners (or just tears, for that matter). Describing how to pronounce it, though, can lead to some intricate pronouncements, as in these well-intentioned comments from the About.com Italian Language forum:

The final gli is pronounced as a palatalized L—i.e., /l'/—followed by a short I sound—/i/. The vowel sound has the quality of an English EE but is as short as the I in 'hit.'

or this:

"The Italian gli is like the 'lli' in million. When another vowel follows, as it usually does (in the next word when gli appears as the definite article the), the i is a silent marker. When gli occurs within a word, the consonant sound is always double. Remember that the g in gli has no value whatsoever, and that, when gli is followed by another vowel, the i has no value."

Provided you were trained in Italian linguistics and understood what palatalized consonants were, you might be able to parse the written instructions into a reasonably correct pronunciation of the terms in question. Within the same message thread there are also creative attempts to provide pronunciation spelling of certain Italian words containing the letter combination 'gli':

figlio » FEEL-yo
pagliacci » pahl-YAH-chee
consigli » kuhn-SEAL-yee)
intitolargli » in-tee-toh-LAHR-yee)

They are somewhat similar to the correct pronunciation—but more like what you would expect from a grade-schooler sounding out a phonics primer.

Ear Drill
The more efficient and straight-forward way to learn how to pronounce Italian—at least specific words—is to listen closely to native speakers and repeat until your tongue gets tired. Italian podcasts such as the Rai Radio 3 program la Lingua Batte feature a variety of topics. For pronunciation of individual Italian words, try Forvo, which calls itself "il dizionario di pronuncia" and has an extensive database of audio files, or Vivaldi (an acronym that stands for VIVaio Acustico delle Lingue e dei Dialetti d'Italia), an Italian linguistic atlas with a multitude of audio examples of regional speakers.

Pronunciation respelling of Italian might serve a purpose for the uninitiated. But since you probably don't have the time to sound out every single syllable it is more effective to practice pronouncing Italian the way most Italians do—by speaking it, instead of trying to parse out symbols and systems and making it more complicated.