This paper deals with the prosodic items «rhythm» and «pauses» in relation with the acquisition
of German by Italian natives. It discusses universal as well as language-specific phonetic and phonologic
aspects. Starting from the assumption that the basic elements that determine rhythm are
syllables in syllable-timed languages and stress groups in stress-timed languages, specific phonetic
and phonologic aspects of German and Italian are attributed to rhythmic differences. Pauses are
analysed by taking into consideration their function in spoken language, i.e. specifically for speech
organization. Both the contrastive aspects of German and Italian and the so-called «foreign accent
» of Italian learners of German are discussed. Finally, the paper gives some practical hints for
phonetic training specifically addressed to Italian learners of German.
