Learn Italian

Italiano · a free course from absolute beginner to C2 · one lesson a day

Italian is the most transparent of the major Romance languages: what is written is what is said, the stress is where you expect it, and a beginner reading aloud is understood. It rewards the first few months more visibly than its neighbours, partly because so much ordinary conversation runs on a small set of very frequent verbs used idiomatically — which is precisely what a frequency-ordered course teaches first.

What is hard about Italian, and what this course does about it

Two things bite later. Double consonants are not decoration — capelli is hair and cappelli is hats — and the ear has to be trained to hear a difference English does not make, which is why the listening work starts in the first lesson. And the past tense splits: a compound past that needs the right auxiliary and sometimes an agreeing participle, alongside a simple past that is ordinary in the south and literary in the north. The course teaches both, and says which is which.

What the course covers

The syllabus is 367 numbered steps, and the first 403 of them have a lesson written by hand behind them — the explanation, the examples and the questions, not a template filled in. 31 of those steps are the grammar core: everything you need before the course turns to recombining it, which is the work that carries you from intermediate to C2.

The first 14 grammar points, in order

Straight from the course's own syllabus. Each gets its own lesson, and comes back in the reading and listening of later ones.

1. Singular subject pronouns (io, tu, lui/lei) and essere for one person
2. Plural subject pronouns (noi, voi, loro) and the plural of essere
3. The verb avere, and core avere expressions (ho fame, ho vent'anni)
4. Regular present tense of -ARE verbs (parlare, abitare, guardare)
5. Noun gender and the definite articles il, lo, la and l'
6. Plurals (-o→-i, -a→-e, -e→-i) and the plural articles i, gli and le
7. Regular present tense of -ERE and -IRE verbs (credere, dormire)
8. The -isc- group of -IRE verbs (finire, capire, preferire)
9. Irregular present-tense verbs: andare and fare
10. Irregular present-tense verbs: venire and stare
11. Indefinite articles (un/uno/una/un') and c'è / ci sono
12. Articulated prepositions (del, al, nella, sul…) and talking about places
13. Possessive adjectives with the article (il mio, la tua) and demonstratives (questo/quello)
14. Adjective agreement and position (una casa piccola, un buon amico)

How one lesson works

Around 20–30 minutes at the fullest setting. Three lengths to choose from, and a shorter one spreads each grammar point over more lessons rather than taking the support away.

1. Review first. Every card that is due today comes back before anything new starts — all of them, with no cap, because a cap on reviews is a cap on what you remember.
2. New words. A handful of new words, dealt straight down the frequency list from wherever you got to, each with its recording.
3. The grammar. One point, explained in writing with worked examples and tables, before the questions that test it.
4. Reading. A passage in Italian in three parts, written from words you have already been taught, with comprehension questions.
5. Listening. The same again for the ear, in three parts.
6. Writing. From lesson 7, one task where you produce Italian of your own and get it back marked.

The words, and the order they come in

The course's vocabulary is a frequency list 10,039 words long, and the deck deals it in rank order from word one — so the words you meet first are the ones standing between you and an ordinary sentence. You can read the top of that list without signing up: the most common Italian words.

The course's words and phrases are recorded in a Italian voice — 4,937 clips, counted on the server — and the listening section plays them as connected speech rather than as a word list.

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