The 18 Best Sites for Advanced Italian Lessons Online
Advanced language learners are a unique breed.
While beginners tend to share lots of learning needs and goals, one advanced Italian learner might look totally different from another.
Maybe you’re a confident, fluid speaker with garbled writing, while your friend can read pages and pages of advanced Italian prose but clams up in an actual conversation.
If you’re ready for advanced Italian lessons, you’re ready to level up your language skills and become a whole new type of Italian speaker.
So in this post, I’ll introduce you to 18 fantastic and diverse resources for advanced Italian lessons online.
These lessons are technically listed as intermediate, but they’re targeted at both intermediate and advanced learners.
It’s a great option if you’re just starting out with advanced Italian and don’t want to bite off more than you can chew.
These lessons will give you well-rounded skills, from conversational confidence to grammar knowledge. All lessons are taught fully in Italian by a native, so you’ll be immersed in the authentic language from minute one.
Each video lesson comes with a downloadable PDF.
The lessons have exercises for listening, speaking and grammar so you can apply your new skills. The best part is that you get lifetime access to the course and all its updates, and they’re always improving. They currently list upcoming features like quizzes and video captions.
If you enjoy this course, there’s plenty more to be found on Udemy. Udemy is great because it’s totally flexible—you follow your own schedule and as noted above, once you purchase a course you can access the materials at any time.
Just search “Italian” to see all the language course options, or explore the thousands of other options they have available for curious learners!
Don’t be thrown off by this program’s name. They also offer Italian courses online!
The online courses are taught by native Italian teachers. You learn privately through live e-lessons with your teacher. They even offer flexible schedules for your convenience.
In their Advanced 1 and Advanced 2 courses, you learn Italian grammar, syntax and communication. They also include Italian culture and history in the curriculum.
Not only does this make their lessons more engaging, it also gives you a deeper understanding of everyday life in Italy.
FluentU is an immersive program that creates lessons for learners through authentic Italian videos.
There are interactive, translated captions—just hover over any word to see its definition, an associated image and other videos in which it appears. Keep track of unknown words with personalized vocabulary lists, flashcards and quizzes that adapt based on what you already know.
Videos are conveniently organized into lessons and sortable by difficulty, so you can work toward a particular objective, topic or skill that’s at the level you need it to be.
Plus, FluentU uses a spaced repetition system (SRS) to test you with flashcards and quizzes that keep new words and structures in your long-term memory.
As the name hints, Memrise’s goal is to make Italian memorization manageable and even enjoyable. The lessons are comprised of flashcard-like exercises, animated games and more.
Plus, one of Memrise’s newer features is Grammabot, a chatbot that teaches grammar to improve your fluency. They also have two review options: classic and speed review.
They offer several diverse lessons for higher-level Italian. For example:
The first two are official Memrise courses designed to teach you complicated conversation topics, turns of phrases and advanced vocabulary.
The others are community courses (created by other users), which are great for creative themes and uncommon terms—just be mindful of the fact that they’re not official course content.
Want to prove your advanced Italian chops to an employer or school? You’ll want to get CILS or CELI certified. These are two of the major certificates for Italian as a second language.
Porta d’Oriente is an Italian immersion school that offers an online CILS and CELI prep course. You’ll be working on an e-learning platform but you’ll still get personalized attention from an Italian tutor. They’ll cover all exam portions including reading and listening comprehension, writing, grammar, vocabulary and oral production.
They also offer two practice exams so you can go into the real one at your most confident. Best of all, you can follow the course entirely on your schedule!
The excellent course platform edX is an online learning resource and MOOC (Massive Open Online Course) spot that offers hundreds of courses on nearly every subject through some of the world’s most prestigious colleges and universities.
This course is just one of the many Italian learning options offered on the platform.
Italian Language and Culture is a free, 8-week self-paced course offered through Wellesley College.
The course uses a variety of techniques to teach advanced language skills, including authentic content videos that show Italian students participating in daily campus activities, downloadable podcasts, reading materials and actual video lessons with a teacher.
There’s an emphasis on Italian culture, as well. Materials cover the Italian socio-economic issues in current headlines, theater and literature.
Rosetta Stone is an immersive language-learning program that uses a combination of speech recognition, native speakers and vocabulary-building exercises to build your Italian knowledge.
It has courses designed for various levels of language learners, including an advanced Italian program.
This interactive online course requires a subscription and teaches through a series of lessons designed to bring learners up to a C1 level of proficiency on the CEFR scale.
The course contains all the content offered on Rosetta Stone’s CD program, but it’s accessible from a computer, tablet or phone, so it’s mobile and suitable for tight schedules.
There’s a placement test to determine where to begin in the course. Additionally, there’s a free trial offer to test whether or not it’s the right course for you!
This free advanced course from Italy Made Easy consists of eight lessons centered around the YouTube series of the same name.
The course takes these videos and turns them into a thorough curriculum with comprehension exercises and quizzes to make sure you really understand the content.
The videos consist of conversations between host Manu and various guests on topics covering everything from ordering coffee to getting married.
Conversations are fast and authentic and may be tough to keep up with at first, making this an excellent resource for pushing you beyond your comfort level and onto the next level of Italian.
Italy Made Easy has a collection of other courses for various levels. Besides the course, check out the interactive forums on the site, where users and native Italian speakers can chat and help each other by answering questions.
A basic account is free and gives learners a taste of the overall course. To gain full access to all the coursework, learners must join the Academy.
But even if you don’t choose to join, there are even more YouTube videos on their channel that are useful and absolutely free!
Each course is individualized, scheduling is flexible and tutors are native Italian speakers who also speak good English and have teaching experience.
Lessons are 55 minutes long and focused on what you want to accomplish. Discuss your goals with your tutor before you dive in and you’ll receive guidance and a chance to communicate with a native speaker.
There are no books or materials to purchase; tutors will provide online sources whenever necessary to maximize learning on an individualized basis.
You can book a 30-minute trial lesson for free to assess the program.
Rocket Italian Platinum is the most advanced Italian course Rocket Languages offers. It teaches using interactive audio tracks that cover topics such as socializing, culture, food and Italian culture and travel.
Each of the 29 audio lessons is about 25 minutes long and comes with a written transcript so you can follow along. Conversations are divided into chunks, which are translated and explained with accompanying grammar notes.
The lessons are held by native Italian speakers and are spoken at a slightly slowed-down speed with clear pronunciation so you can understand every little word!
There are additional topics so once you’ve mastered a few, move on to the others!
Learners get to pick and choose their curriculum from the topics available to structure an individualized learning program. This way, you can learn about what interests you and work toward your own personal learning goal.
You can hear a sample lesson on the site to see if Rocket Italian is right for you.
Apart from offering users a slough of resources with a paid membership, ItalianPod101 has a free YouTube channel full of quick and challenging listening comprehension exercises.
The narrator asks a multiple-choice question, then you listen to the dialogue—first without and then with Italian subtitles.
As you listen the second time, choices are eliminated based on evidence given during the dialogue, leaving only the correct answer.
These exercises are each about five minutes long and are great if you only have a short time to study.
Online Italian Club is a great resource for grammar topics you’re having trouble with.
The website offers material for each of the six levels of the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages (A1-C2). You can also pick and choose the topics you’d like to focus on, so go ahead and go straight to the vocabulary and grammar section!
If you’d like to get confirmation about your current level, Online Italian Club also gives you the opportunity to double-check it with an online level test.
This website provides a thorough approach to Italian studies but gives you the flexibility you need to focus on the components of the language you need the most. Just look up any topic you could use some help with and you’ll have a full lesson ready for you.
Cyber Italian is an all-around excellent resource for learning Italian. Each of their 20 advanced lessons is jam-packed with audio, culture information, exercises and quizzes.
Grammar and vocabulary are taught by first listening to dialogue. You’ll see the transcript on one side of the screen and the verbs you’ll encounter (plus their meanings) on the other side.
In the grammar section of each lesson, several grammatical forms are explained and given more context. Each lesson ends with a quiz to test your knowledge.
And if 20 lessons aren’t enough, they have recipes, songs, book excerpts and games to expand your Italian knowledge.
IE Languages is more of a reference resource than a place to find lessons, per se.
Click on any topic to see a thorough explanation of it, complete with examples, charts and audio recordings.
In addition to nearly three hours of audio files, their tutorials come in a handy e-book format with 180 pages of grammar and vocabulary topics. (You can download the first 10 pages for free to see if it’s right for you.)
And if you prefer your lessons on the go, this resource is perfect for those who don’t want to carry around heavy textbooks since it allows you to load everything onto your tablet, e-reader or smartphone.
Italki is a service that matches up native-speaking teachers with language learners.
Browse the dozens of profiles of Italian language teachers, watch their video introductions and see reviews from past students.
Prices are affordable and generally range from $6 to $30, so you can pick someone who easily fits into your budget and can provide the guidance you need.
From there the lessons are customized to fit your individual needs. If you need to work on grammar, they can help. If you want to know if you’re using those idioms correctly, they can give you feedback on that, too.
Lessons are flexible and work around your schedule.
Verbling operates on a similar premise as italki, since you can select a teacher for private lessons.
However, with Verbling, you buy blocks of lessons on a particular topic. You then select a block of time for the instructor to go through the lessons with you from a calendar of availability.
Whether it’s exam preparation or advanced grammar, this is a very cost-effective way to get face-to-face (or screen-to-screen) instruction.
The real advantage of sites like these is that you receive guidance, motivation and feedback from the instructors. If you’re only learning online, then paying for an opportunity like this is a necessary investment.
I know you love to read for fun, but sometimes it’s good to see how much of a text you comprehend.
Italy Magazine provides free advanced-level texts to read and then tests your understanding with a series of questions. Correct answers are revealed by clicking on the question.
This is a great source of news about Italian culture and current events. You can also find dual-language articles here to further improve your reading skills.
Liber Liber is a website dedicated to Italian literature. While it doesn’t necessarily offer lessons, it’s still a wonderful resource for improving your Italian reading and listening comprehension.
This site offers a selection of free e-books and audiobooks that allow you to download both files—giving you the opportunity to read the text while listening to the narrator.
These books are all classics of Italian literature and reading and listening to them simultaneously can make the language a little less overwhelming.
Plus, there’s the added bonus of knowing that words are pronounced correctly! To perfect your own pronunciation, go back and read a portion of the text along with the narrator.
How to Gauge Your Italian Learning Needs
It’s important to know where your abilities lie, so you know where to take the next step in your Italian studies.
While it may be hard to judge your proficiency when you’re teaching yourself, there are some ways to help you figure it out.
Look at the main rubrics of language learning: reading, writing, speaking and listening.
Where are your skills strongest? Where are there gaps in your abilities? Can you respond to a question you hear, or pronounce words out loud as you read?
Questions like this help you know where you need the most work, and therefore what you need from an advanced Italian course.
If you’re looking for advanced online Italian lessons, you’re already taking an important step toward fluency.
But it’s important to supplement your learning with outside resources for truly balanced skills that continue to grow.
Here’s how:
Practice every day: You know what they say—use it or lose it! Make sure you dedicate regular time to Italian practice. Schedule it into your calendar to keep yourself accountable. Even though you’re at an advanced level, you still need to work to keep your language muscles in shape.
Use your favorite media: Watching Italian TV, reading books, listening to music, etc. lets you learn more casual and common Italian than the proper lessons you would find in a textbook. As an advanced learner, using these learning channels gives you an opportunity to relax a little and enjoy yourself, while still practicing your skill and even learning new things.
Find native speakers: Is there anyone in your area that speaks Italian? Try the Italian language department at your local university, for example. Invite them for a coffee so you can get to know them while practicing your speech! You’ll get firsthand help and advice, plus the chance to make a new friend.
Travel: When you visit Italy, you can completely immerse yourself in the language. Read newspapers, talk to locals and eavesdrop at coffee shops to practice and advance your Italian capabilities. You can also do fun activities like taking cooking classes or local tours. As an advanced learner, jumping into a full Italian experience will give you innumerable chances to apply your knowledge. This type of total immersion is a great step towards full fluency.
Advanced Italian will present a new and interesting challenge for you.
As long as you work every day to keep your skills in practice, you’ll make it to the highest level: fluency!
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