10 Intensive Italian Courses Online to Fast-Track Your Learning
If you need to learn Italian fast, then intensive Italian courses are a good option. These courses immerse you in Italian by having you study the language for several hours per week, even every day.
Many of us simply cannot fly off to Italy for an intensive Italian course, but there are online options now that you can take from anywhere in the world.
Contents
- 1. Best for Intensive Group Classes: Scuola Leonardo da Vinci
- 2. Best for Flexible Scheduling: Preply
- 3. Best for Learning Through Native Content: FluentU
- 4. Best for One-on-One Lessons: ABC School Firenze
- 5. Best for Diverse Courses: Centro Culturale Conero
- 6. Best for Travel: La Dante in Cambridge
- 7. Best for PLIDA Prep: Società Dante Alighieri
- 8. Best for Conversational Practice: University of Trento
- 9. Best for Business Italian: Il Centro Milano
- 10. Best for US Time Zone Classes: Dante in Linea
- And One More Thing...
Download: This blog post is available as a convenient and portable PDF that you can take anywhere. Click here to get a copy. (Download)
1. Best for Intensive Group Classes: Scuola Leonardo da Vinci
This popular Italy-based school is known for offering intensive courses in several Italian cities, like Florence and Milan, but they have an online program too.
Their intensive course involves four online lessons each day, five days a week. Each lesson is 45 minutes, so that’s a lot of Italian. Classes are in the morning or evening, following Italy’s time zone.
With class sizes capped at 14 students, you’ll get plenty of personal attention, and you’ll also have access to online review exercises.
You can sign on for a minimum of one week and can remain in the course for as long as is necessary to achieve the level of fluency desired. The longer a student is with the school, the less the course costs. Discounted coursework begins with the second week.
2. Best for Flexible Scheduling: Preply
Preply is a platform that allows learners to choose a tutor for online language learning. There are many tutors here who offer intensive Italian lessons.
Choosing an online tutor is no different from choosing a local tutor. Each tutor has a profile, which you can browse to see that teacher’s qualifications. Then, simply choose the tutor that best suits your needs.
Aside from Preply’s native platform, lessons can be done on Zoom and Skype, so choose a tutor who offers lessons that are compatible with your schedule.
Prices per session vary according to the tutor. Lessons can be scheduled using a calendar that shows time in the learner’s time zone so there’s no uncertainty regarding calculating time differences.
3. Best for Learning Through Native Content: FluentU
FluentU’s program is self-paced, so it’s as intensive as you make it. This means you can study what you actually care about and learn Italian relevant to you and your reasons for studying.
The program is based around authentic videos: Italian-language videos that native Italian speakers actually watch. These include movie trailers and clips, news segments, commercials, music videos, vlogs and other native content.
These videos might be meant for native speakers, but they’re optimized for learners. The program gives you interactive subtitles with pop-up definition cards, multimedia flashcards and vocab lists and personalized quizzes that evolve as you learn.
Videos can be organized by difficulty level, topic and format so you can choose videos that are interesting and relevant to you. FluentU also has a learning streak to encourage regular study.
4. Best for One-on-One Lessons: ABC School Firenze
ABC School Firenze offers personalized lessons to learners who are unable to head to Florence for their intensive program.
Lessons take place via Skype and are 55 minutes long. Scheduling and the number of lessons per week are based on individual needs.
Educational materials are emailed to students before each lesson.
5. Best for Diverse Courses: Centro Culturale Conero
This school offers intensive Italian online lessons via Skype via their Learn Italian Online website to learners who can’t study at their amazing location in Italy. In short—if you can’t go to them, they bring the language to you.
Scheduling lessons, length of study and any other details are taken care of during enrollment. Programs are personalized depending on a learner’s needs.
6. Best for Travel: La Dante in Cambridge
Based in Cambridge, UK, this language school is a standout because it actually got a knighthood from the Italian president.
La Dante offers both regular and intensive courses for adults online. Besides their usual 10-week courses in Italian, they also have intensive courses with native Italian teachers lasting for a week. You can think of these as a sprint—their focus is on teaching you helpful phrases in Italy fast before you travel there.
Intensive classes run for one or two hours daily, depending on your level. They cover beginner to intermediate levels, with activities like discussing your interests and reading short stories. Plus, there are free conversation classes every month for students so you can get some socializing in too.
7. Best for PLIDA Prep: Società Dante Alighieri
Società Dante Alighieri is a big name in the Italian language scene, with schools all over the world and in Italy. They have intensive online classes for beginner and intermediate learners (A1 to B2). You can expect around six hours per week of video lessons over five weeks.
Their approach is all about immersing you in authentic Italian material even from the start, supplementing textbooks with videos and songs.
Classes are also geared towards prepping you for the PLIDA exam, an official exam to certify your Italian skills.
8. Best for Conversational Practice: University of Trento
The University of Trento is one of Italy’s top-ranked universities, and you can enroll in their intensive online Italian courses. Aimed at A1 to B1 learners (beginners), these are held from Monday to Saturday. True to the school’s reputation, you’ll be working hard here—classes last two to three hours per day.
There’s a huge emphasis on speaking in Italian, even if you’re a newbie. The classes use a role-playing method, so you’ll be practicing Italian expressions spontaneously and getting more confident with speaking.
9. Best for Business Italian: Il Centro Milano
Il Centro Milano is another fantastic Italy-based school with intensive online classes that are designed for beginners. These are usually held for four hours a day, at three or five days each week.
There are 5 to 10 students in a class, and you’ll get tons of conversation practice through fun groupwork and pair activities. You don’t have to jump in right away, to0—you can join a free trial class to see whether you like their teaching style.
Il Centro Milano also has one-on-one classes and specialized courses on business Italian if you’re at a more advanced level.
10. Best for US Time Zone Classes: Dante in Linea
Dante in Linea might be based in the US, but its teachers are native Italian speakers with plenty of years of teaching experience. They come from different areas in Italy, so you can choose to learn a specific accent.
Its intensive group classes have five to eight students, and lessons are five times a week, at 75 minutes each.
Thankfully, you don’t have to worry if you miss a class. Sessions are recorded so you can catch up anytime, plus there are class notes that you can review for a quick refresher.
So if you need to bring your Italian language skills to the fast lane and you’re willing to devote the time and effort an intensive Italian course requires, these resources have got you covered.
Whether you relocate to Italy for a few weeks or just log into Skype round the clock, it’ll all be worth the work in the end!
Intensive courses aren’t easy, but they do make it possible to fast-track your Italian learning.
Good luck!
Download: This blog post is available as a convenient and portable PDF that you can take anywhere. Click here to get a copy. (Download)
And One More Thing...
If you're as busy as most of us, you don't always have time for lengthy language lessons. The solution? FluentU!
Learn Italian with funny commericals, documentary excerpts and web series, as you can see here:
FluentU helps you get comfortable with everyday Italian by combining all the benefits of complete immersion and native-level conversations with interactive subtitles. Tap on any word to instantly see an image, in-context definition, example sentences and other videos in which the word is used.
Access a complete interactive transcript of every video under the Dialogue tab, and review words and phrases with convenient audio clips under Vocab.
Once you've watched a video, you can use FluentU's quizzes to actively practice all the vocabulary in that video. Swipe left or right to see more examples of the word you’re on.
FluentU will even keep track of all the Italian words you’re learning, and give you extra practice with difficult words. Plus, it'll tell you exactly when it's time for review. Now that's a 100% personalized experience!
The best part? You can try FluentU for free with a trial.
Start using the FluentU website on your computer or tablet or, better yet, download the FluentU app from the iTunes or Google Play store. Click here to take advantage of our current sale! (Expires at the end of this month.)
