The 41 Best Online Italian Courses for 2023
If you don’t have “take online Italian courses” on your To-do list yet, now’s the time.
These structured, expert-taught resources will help you master the most important language skills and take the next big step toward fluency.
I’ve sifted through the most popular Italian courses online, conducted an in-depth review of each one’s features and determined which type of learner they’re suitable for. Then, I handpicked the best of the best to get you started on your Italian journey.
Contents
- 1. Best for Beginners: The Italian Experiment
- 2. Best Audiovisual Course: FluentU
- 3. Best for Authentic Content: iLUSS Italian Online
- 4. Best Free Course: FSI Italian Fast
- 5. Most Flexible Course: Scuola Leonardo da Vinci Online Italian Courses
- 6. Best Immersion Course: Rosetta Stone Italian
- 7. Best for Vocabulary: Memrise Italian
- 8. Best for Busy Learners: Duolingo Italian
- 9. Best for Basic Conversations: Loecsen
- 10. Best for Travel Phrases: Study Italian Language
- 11. Best Course for Speaking Practice: Speechling Italian
- 12. Best All-in-One Course: Mondly Italian
- 13. Most Comprehensive Course: Rocket Italian
- 14. Best Course for the Basics: OUINO Italian
- 15. Most Practical Course: Instant Italian from ed2go
- 16. Best Course to Improve Pronunciation: Glossika Italian
- 17. Best for Young Learners: Infinite Italian
- 18. Best Range of Learning Materials: ItalianPod101
- 19. Best Course for Listening Practice: Pimsleur Italian
- 20. Most Stress-Free Learning Course: Michel Thomas Italian
- 21. Best Flashcard App: MosaLingua Italian App
- 22. Most Diverse Courses: Italy Made Easy
- 23. Best Cultural Course: Italiano Automatico (Automatic Italian)
- 24. Best for Foodies: MIT Open Courseware: Speak Italian with Your Mouth Full
- 25. Best for One-on-One Lessons: Jumpspeak Italian
- 26. Best Audio Course for Beginners: Let’s Speak Italian! Podcast
- 27. Best Audio Course for Learners of All Levels: LingQ Italian
- 28. Best Course for Daily Life: CoffeeBreak Italian
- 29. Best for Intermediate Learners: Easy Italian
- 30. Best Course for Self-Study: Cyber Italian
- 31. Best Classroom-like Course: “Italian Language and Culture: Beginner” from edX
- 32. Best for Structured Learning: Udemy
- 33. Best for College Credit: Ecampus at Oregon State University
- 34. Best for Language Proficiency Certifications: Europass Italian Language School
- 35. Best for Serious Learners: Babbel Italian Language Course
- 36. Best for Casual Learners: Language Transfer
- 37. Best Free Resource for CEFR Takers: Online Italian Club
- 38. Best Paid Resource for CEFR Takers: Italian Virtual School
- 39. Best Video Course: One World Italiano
- 40. Best Online Interactive Course: BBC Languages Italian
- 41. Best for Community-based Learning: Busuu
- Why Take an Italian Language Course?
1. Best for Beginners: The Italian Experiment
Price: free
Summary: The Italian Experiment is a great resource for beginners, offering free online Italian lessons with audio.
On The Italian Experiment, you’ll find the essentials, like days of the week, months, counting, shopping and more. Each lesson has simple explanations about the material being covered, example sentences and audio of the Italian passages.
This is an effective way to pick up basic vocabulary, foundational phrases and even pronunciation. You can use these materials as a solid introduction to the language.
In addition to the core lessons, The Italian Experiment has a selection of children’s stories. Listen to the stories for entertainment and to hear the natural rhythm of the language.
The transcripts for the stories are available in Italian, and you have the option to translate them into English on the page if you’d like. Whether you read along or just listen to the native-speaker narration, this is a delightful way to experience Italian.
2. Best Audiovisual Course: FluentU
Price: free trial available ($19.99 per month; $8 per month if you opt for an annual subscription)
Summary: FluentU is a video-based learning platform that uses authentic media clips to teach Italian, equipped with interactive subtitles, flashcards and quizzes.
FluentU is an app that immerses you in the language through authentic videos and content made by and for native speakers. The videos cover a variety of topics from news reports and music videos to drama clips and movie trailers. Each video has easily accessible interactive subtitles to help you understand every word.
When you’re learning Italian, it’s not always easy to access real Italian media without having to look up every word. But in FluentU’s videos, you can hover over any word in the captions to see the meaning. When you click on a word, you can find the definition, example sentences and links to other videos where the word is used.
The program also comes with personalized quizzes to help reinforce new vocabulary and grammar points. Each quiz has audio so you can practice your listening and pronunciation skills.
Aside from quizzes, the app has a built-in flashcard system that uses spaced repetition software (SRS)—which is one of the best methods for remembering vocabulary. This means that every day, you’ll get flashcard reviews based on which words you’re most likely to forget.
3. Best for Authentic Content: iLUSS Italian Online
Price: free ($20 for 4-month memberships and $45 for annual memberships)
Summary: Based out of Florence, Italy, this course was developed by native speakers of the Italian language.
There are two tiers to iLUSS Italian Online’s courses: free and member-based.
The free courses include four levels of Italian lessons (beginner, elementary, intermediate and advanced). Each level includes lessons covering topics ranging from the basics (the alphabet and Italian numbers) to more advanced ones (direct and indirect object pronouns).
Should you decide to pay for iLUSS, the options are limitless. Members can access more dynamic grammar exercises and vocabulary-building activities to reinforce what they’re learning. You’ll also work with a wider variety of interactive courses and readings to bring your Italian to the next level.
Not sure which level you should start at? iLUSS also offers a proficiency test so learners can figure out which level is best for developing their current skills.
4. Best Free Course: FSI Italian Fast
Price: free
Summary: FSI Italian Fast is a structured and fully-formed Italian course that uses a textbook-based approach.
FSI Italian Fast is actually a course developed by the U.S. government for diplomats and other government workers. That means it’s targeted and concise, and focuses on getting learners to speak effectively to native Italian speakers ASAP.
Further, this course is in the public domain, meaning it’s absolutely free to access.
The FSI Italian Fast course mixes a textbook-based approach with hours of audio recordings. I’m not exaggerating: there are literally hours of professional, government-grade recordings accompanying the Italian lessons.
This course is perfect for growing your comprehension alongside your communication skills and allows you to develop that awesome Italian accent and intonation.
In addition to the instruction material, this course contains many exercises for you to practice and perfect your Italian.
See our full review of FSI Courses here.
5. Most Flexible Course: Scuola Leonardo da Vinci Online Italian Courses
Price: starts at €150 (approx. $160) per week
Summary: Scuola Leonardo da Vinci has online courses for learners with different schedules and priorities.
With online Italian courses for beginner, elementary, intermediate and advanced students, the Scuola Leonardo da Vinci promises full Italian immersion from the comfort of your home.
After taking a placement test, you’ll be assigned to the appropriate class according to your level.
One of the best things about Scuola Leonardo da Vinci is that you can start your course on the Monday that’s convenient to you.
There are three different kinds of online courses learners can choose from:
- Intensive—four lessons per day for at least one week
- Part-time—four lessons per week for a minimum of 8 weeks
- Individual—five lessons for a flat price of €190 (approx. $205)
6. Best Immersion Course: Rosetta Stone Italian
Price: starts at $11.99 per month (3 months)
Summary: Rosetta Stone is an immersive learning program that teaches Italian in an intuitive way.
Rosetta Stone is perhaps one of the oldest language learning software programs, and it has completely stood the test of time.
In fact, the first Rosetta Stone was released as a CD-ROM in 1992 and, to date, millions of people worldwide have used it to learn a language.
Rosetta Stone uses a method called “Dynamic Immersion” to help users learn Italian. That means that it uses authentic Italian audio as well as visual cues and input exercises to teach the language.
Learners must read and listen to genuine Italian content and then write words and phrases in Italian.
There are also clear and concise grammar lessons, and Rosetta Stone’s speech technology, TruAccent, allows learners to work on their pronunciation.
Read a full review of Rosetta Stone here.
7. Best for Vocabulary: Memrise Italian
Price: free (premium version starts at $14.99 per month)
Summary: Memrise is an addictive gamified app that drills you on Italian vocabulary and grammar concepts.
Memrise’s strengths lie in its emphasis on drilling the basics through various exercises that strengthen your recall of Italian.
With plenty of pronunciation examples from native speakers, you’ll get a lot of exposure to Italian intonation as you learn both common words and zesty idiomatic expressions.
Memrise has an official Italian course with grammar lessons and video clips for vocab. However, the community-contributed courses on Memrise shouldn’t be overlooked.
While the quality of user-contributed content may vary, some crowdsourced courses target very specific goals—such as reading giornali italiani (Italian newspapers), learning Italian verbs, mastering Italian grammar and the most common Italian words.
Find out more about Memrise in this review.
8. Best for Busy Learners: Duolingo Italian
Price: free (Super Duolingo starts at $9.99)
Summary: Duolingo is a fun Italian learning app that builds language skills through game-like quizzes and challenges.
Duolingo’s lessons are based on a language learning “tree.” Essentially, this is a curriculum for learning your target language (in this case, Italian) from scratch.
The tree contains multiple modules revolving around a specific topic. Each module contains multiple lessons that teach common phrases and vocabulary around that topic.
Each lesson includes speaking, reading, writing and listening practice as well as grammar notes. You can choose to level up topics for more practice or advanced learning.
To move forward in the “tree,” learners have to complete the preceding modules, so learning is very much guided.
There’s also a simple solution for non-beginner Italian learners: new users can take an Italian proficiency test and, based on those results, start further in the “tree” so as to not relearn beginner topics.
See our full review of Duolingo Italian here.
9. Best for Basic Conversations: Loecsen
Price: free
Summary: Loecsen is intended for Italian language learners who want to maximize their conversational skills without intensive or lengthy study.
Loecsen’s beginner courses focus on rapid learning, emphasizing basic conversational words and phrases. This course is ideal for travelers, teaching them how to carry on simple exchanges with locals.
The vocabulary in each module follows a topical theme. All you have to do is learn and memorize the material, then proceed to the next module. The material builds upon what you’ve already previously learned, and repetition makes conversations with natives feel almost natural.
Loecsen stresses the importance of proper pronunciation. In addition to native Italian audio, it also gives also helpful pronunciation tips.
As a nice bonus, the audio and PDF files are downloadable—so this is a resource that can be used anytime, anywhere.
10. Best for Travel Phrases: Study Italian Language
Price: free
Summary: Study Italian Language is a course designed for learners who have no prior knowledge of Italian.
Study Italian Language has 33 lessons separated into five modules: greetings, transportation, dining, shopping and basic communication skills. The lessons and exercises also come with audio to help you perfect your pronunciation.
The program is designed to be self-taught, with self-evaluation quizzes to help you check what you’ve learned at the end of each lesson.
Grammar topics are kept to a minimum, emphasizing conversational Italian skills instead. You’ll find common words and phrases here, making it a wonderfully worthwhile course for building that essential vocabulary base.
11. Best Course for Speaking Practice: Speechling Italian
Price: free (Speechling Unlimited starts from $19.99 a month)
Summary: Speechling is an app that uses audio and a recording feature to help you perfect your speaking skills.
Speechling Italian mixes flashcards and speaking practice, with an added bonus of native-speaker support.
Like Duolingo, Speechling also uses the “tree” format to structure its course offerings with decks available for beginner, intermediate, advanced and expert learners. There are even decks available for specific topics such as transportation, health and verbs.
Once you’ve chosen the level or topic deck you want to learn, Speechling uses SRS technology to perfectly time flashcard review so the words and phrases stay in your brain.
Each flashcard allows you to see the Italian word and its translation as well as hear the word and record your own audio for each flashcard.
If you opt for the paid Speechling Unlimited version, you can have your recorded audio evaluated by native speakers for tips on how to improve pronunciation.
12. Best All-in-One Course: Mondly Italian
Price: free (in-app purchases start at $9.99 per month)
Summary: Mondly offers a comprehensive Italian course that uses immersion techniques with a guided structure.
Mondly is a great all-around Italian language course that combines the immersion features of Rosetta Stone and the structure of Duolingo.
Primarily, Mondly teaches Italian through pictures, phrases and conversations.
Learners follow a visual map of topics to progress through the course, and each “destination” on the map revolves around a particular topic.
Each lesson contains crystal-clear native Italian audio. The lessons also use matching exercises, sentence-building exercises and speech recognition technology to get learners to use the language.
The conversations featured on Mondly are also recorded by native speakers, and the flashcards can be studied at regular intervals through SRS technology.
Additionally, learners can even have an Italian conversation with the Mondly bot, an artificial intelligence program to enhance your learning.
If Mondly sounds interesting to you, here’s a comprehensive review about it.
13. Most Comprehensive Course: Rocket Italian
Price: free trial available (paid version starts at $149.95)
Summary: Rocket Italian is a complete app-based course packed with high-quality content.
Created by Rocket Languages, Rocket Italian is a comprehensive online course for beginner, intermediate and advanced learners.
Rocket Italian has several features that allow you to learn the language “your way.”
If you prefer to learn through audio, you’ll find lessons that include an Italian native speaker and an American-Italian native speaker who have conversations about different topics. They use these conversations to explain different aspects of the Italian language.
See our full review of Rocket Languages here.
14. Best Course for the Basics: OUINO Italian
Price: starts at $12.99 per month; monthly rates go down when you purchase a subscription for a longer period
Summary: OUINO is an online course that builds a good foundation for Italian with in-depth explanations.
The OUINO program aims to help Italian learners excel in the two tools needed to speak Italian fluently: a strong core method and external sources.
According to this methodology, external sources are the things that help you create artificial immersion like books, movies and TV shows. The strong core method, on the other hand, is the Italian course itself.
Unlike with other Italian language courses, OUINO learners can choose their own learning path. There’s no set curriculum to follow, so learners can choose which topics they believe are the most useful to their Italian language journey.
The course’s lessons include explanations of grammar and vocabulary, as well as exercises to reinforce what’s been learned.
There are also handy “Building Blocks” modules that teach the structure of the Italian language so that an infinite amount of sentences can be created after you complete the course.
OUINO Languages also has various tools including a verb conjugator, vocabulary lists, audio and written conversations and pronunciation practice.
15. Most Practical Course: Instant Italian from ed2go
Price: $165 (self-paced); $150 (instructor-led)
Summary: ed2go offers a beginner Italian course that teaches the basics of daily life—perfect for those who will soon travel or live in Italy.
If you’re traveling to Italy soon, this six-week online course will set you up with the basics of the language and the practical knowledge you’ll need while abroad.
You’ll start with basic greetings, the alphabet and pronunciation, and work all the way up to shopping and eating out in restaurants.
Instant Italian—which is taught by a real college instructor—provides the audio of words and phrases, dialogues, exercises and more.
You’ll learn not just the language but also the historical and cultural context you need to make your way around Italy.
This course is a little less flexible than some others on this list, as it’s suggested that you complete each lesson during the two weeks after it’s released to gain access to a corresponding interactive discussion area.
On the other hand, this might make it a good option for those who need to learn basic Italian in a limited amount of time or want to push themselves.
16. Best Course to Improve Pronunciation: Glossika Italian
Price: free trial available (paid version starts at $16.99 per month)
Summary: Glossika Italian is a course in which students learn Italian vocabulary and pronunciation through repetition exercises.
Glossika is a superb tool that will help learners get in contact with Italian as it’s spoken by native speakers.
Theoretically, students at any level (A1-C2) can use this course, but if you’re a total beginner, I recommend you learn some Italian basics before you start with this one.
Glossika is based on repetition, and there’s a lot of it.
After you take a placement test, you’ll be assigned a language level and will start listening to random sentences time and time again in short mini sessions.
The audio is professional and has been recorded by native speakers, so you know you’re hearing the language as it’s actually used.
There are two ways in which you can learn and interact with Glossika.
On the one hand, you can choose the Listening Only mode. This will give you sentences in your native language (which you have to choose when signing in) followed by their Italian translation.
On the other hand, you can go for the Full Practice mode. This option is also based on repetition, but it allows you to write and practice your pronunciation while doing your reps.
17. Best for Young Learners: Infinite Italian
Price: free (a full unlock of features is available if you pay $6.99)
Summary: Infinite Italian is a fun game app that teaches Italian vocabulary.
This simple and cute app is one of the best options for kids and total beginners who want to learn their very first Italian words.
Designed with visual learners in mind, the app is all about playing to learn—in fact, the creators call this the “game-first” learning method.
With sweet pictures, simple animations, no use of English and 30-second levels, Infinite Italian will definitely grow on you!
18. Best Range of Learning Materials: ItalianPod101
Price: free (paid versions start at $4 per month)
Summary: ItalianPod101 is a podcast-style app with content for learners of all levels.
ItalianPod101 is from Innovative Language, the company behind the famed Pod101 series.
In addition to their courses—which can be completed on their website—they offer a lot of free material on their YouTube channel and in podcast form.
ItalianPod101 offers four “pathways” (courses) for Italian learners depending on their level: Absolute Beginner, Beginner, Intermediate and Advanced.
These courses can be followed chronologically or completed in whatever order the learner chooses.
The lessons are a mix of grammar and vocabulary, often revolving around a video or audio dialogue that covers a certain topic.
ItalianPod101 offers authentic Italian audio, vocabulary flashcards and in-depth lesson notes. With some plans, ItalianPod101 even includes the help of teachers.
By the way, here’s a more detailed review of ItalianPod101.
19. Best Course for Listening Practice: Pimsleur Italian
Price: $150 per level (16 hours each)
Summary: Pimsleur Italian is an audio course that helps beginners develop their listening and speaking skills.
Pimsleur is a series of language learning courses based on the research of renowned linguist Paul Pimsleur.
According to his Pimsleur Method, nothing is more important than memory to language learning, and these principles translate to a pretty effective audio course.
Pimsleur uses “Graduated Interval Recall” to help learners embed authentic Italian words and phrases into their long-term memory. To do this, it uses digital flashcards in addition to teaching core vocabulary in the course itself.
Further, Pimsleur courses are compatible with Amazon Echo devices, so you can master Italian while cooking or cleaning.
See our full review of Pimsleur here.
20. Most Stress-Free Learning Course: Michel Thomas Italian
Price: starts at $11.99 per course
Summary: Michel Thomas has a relaxed, audio-based Italian course that focuses on beginner concepts.
Michel Thomas, a renowned linguist, devised language learning techniques that involved lots of audio input, a reduction of stress and learning comfort.
Thomas believed that the best way to learn a language was to create an environment as comfortable as possible, which is definitely something we can all get behind.
There’s not a ton of authentic Italian audio in Thomas’ courses, but there are lots of opportunities for learners to participate in the exercises.
Originally sold as an audio course in CD-ROM form, you can now download the courses for a one-time, per-course fee.
21. Best Flashcard App: MosaLingua Italian App
Price: free trial available (paid versions can be $9.99 per month or $59.90 per year)
Summary: MosaLingua is a comprehensive app that focuses on its enormous flashcard bank for Italian vocabulary.
The MosaLingua Italian app was created to help learners of all levels improve their Italian.
Although its strongest feature is the flashcard bank (which includes over 3,500 flashcards), MosaLingua Italian offers much more.
Apart from vocabulary, MosaLingua also includes native audio, grammar bites, verb conjugation and communication tips.
Through dialogues on everyday topics like introducing yourself, answering the phone or asking for help, the app will allow you to immerse yourself in the Italian language without having to leave your house.
The in-app purchases give you access to slang, idioms, additional dialogues, advanced vocabulary, false friends and more Italian grammar, among others.
If I had to choose my two favorite features, I’d go for the option to create your own flashcards and the fact that everything you learn can be accessed offline.
22. Most Diverse Courses: Italy Made Easy
Price: $350 per year
Summary: Italy Made Easy is a course with multiple tracks including simple vocabulary, audio and courses for beginner and intermediate learners.
The “Italy Made Easy” Italian courses are based on the successful “Italy Made Easy” YouTube channel.
Manu, the creator of the courses and the YouTube channel, is a native Italian speaker and polyglot who’s passionate about teaching his mother tongue.
There are multiple “Italy Made Easy” courses offered. You have straightforward courses for beginner and intermediate learners as well as a course that teaches the language exclusively through Italian podcasts.
All “Italy Made Easy” courses follow a structured curriculum. There are hundreds of lessons per course covering vocabulary and grammar topics.
The crux of each course, however, is Italian speaking and listening, with Manu offering lots of authentic Italian in each lesson. In fact, there’s virtually no English used in the intermediate-level lessons.
23. Best Cultural Course: Italiano Automatico (Automatic Italian)
Price: starts at €167 (approx. $180) for beginners (no discount)
Summary: Italiano Automatico is a video-based course centered around Italian culture and history.
Like “Italy Made Easy,” Italiano Automatico was originally a YouTube channel. Italiano Automatico‘s courses are unique because they revolve almost exclusively around Italy’s rich heritage: its famed food, culture and history.
Further, the Conquista l’italiano (Conquer Italian) course teaches the language primarily through listening to and reading interesting and authentic material.
In fact, there’s no explicit memorization of grammar rules or vocabulary. Instead, the course aims to teach the language through the consumption and production of real Italian content. For example, you’ll notice that the site’s home page is entirely in Italian, so you may struggle a bit with navigating it if you’re a beginner—unless you have a handy dictionary, of course.
24. Best for Foodies: MIT Open Courseware: Speak Italian with Your Mouth Full
Price: free
Summary: MIT’s open course “Speak Italian With Your Mouth Full” will teach you the Italian language through cultural lessons that focus on Mediterranean cuisine in particular.
This course was taught in 2012 by Dr. Paola Rebusco, an Italian theoretical astrophysicist. Rather than le stelle (the stars), her focus in this course is on teaching her native language through one of her other passions: cooking.
If you share this passion, this unique course might be your perfect gateway to learn beginner’s Italian.
The course includes straightforward video language lectures and Italian cooking videos (taken from actual classroom instruction). There are also recipes, with instructions in English. However, the ingredients are in Italian—so stocking up on food vocabulary will help you really get cooking with this course.
Among the course materials are lesson PDFs, dialogues, games and downloadable MP3 audio clips.
25. Best for One-on-One Lessons: Jumpspeak Italian
Price: free trial available (paid version starts at $6.59)
Summary: Jumpspeak Italian connects learners with native Italian speakers for one-on-one online lessons.
Jumpspeak promises you’ll learn authentic Italian with real native speakers. Instead of memorizing grammar rules and vocabulary tables, the lessons are catered to each individual learner’s needs and their purpose for learning the language.
In fact, during the first lesson with a native speaker, the teacher will even ask you: “Why are you learning Italian?” Your subsequent lessons will be based on your answer.
There are many Italian teachers available, and learners can choose when they’d like the lesson to be conducted from a teacher’s available time slots.
26. Best Audio Course for Beginners: Let’s Speak Italian! Podcast
Price: free
Summary: “Let’s Speak Italian!” is a podcast-based course that teaches Italian for beginners.
Let’s Speak Italian! is a podcast that teaches the Italian language from scratch, and the audio can be directly downloaded to your smartphone or computer.
This is the perfect Italian course for learners who have zero knowledge of the Italian language. It follows a logical learning path for beginners to bring their skills up to the intermediate level.
The lessons are taught in English and Italian, focusing on the most common vocabulary and essential grammar. Lessons also feature authentic Italian conversations and opportunities for learner participation through audio exercises.
27. Best Audio Course for Learners of All Levels: LingQ Italian
Price: free trial available (starts at $12.99 per month; monthly rates go down when you purchase a subscription for a longer period)
Summary: LingQ is an audio and reading app that allows you to save unknown words for later study.
Like “Let’s Speak Italian,” LingQ is a language learning platform that primarily uses audio to teach Italian.
Created by accomplished polyglot Steve Kaufmann and his son Mark, LingQ has thousands of hours of audio lessons for all levels of Italian.
Steve Kaufmann’s method places much importance on input, so the lessons in LingQ use reading and listening in tandem to help learners excel in the Italian language.
There’s a predetermined learning path for users to follow, but learners can also choose from the feed of lessons according to their needs and interests.
Best of all, LingQ contains a lot of user-generated content. New lessons are constantly being added, and learners can import their own material such as online news articles.
In each LingQ lesson, there’s a transcript of the content in Italian as well as a built-in translation. Unknown words become flashcards that can be reviewed later. Each revision of said flashcard increases that word’s status until it becomes a “known word.”
There are also Italian grammar notes available and tutoring lessons taught by native speakers.
See our full review of LingQ here.
28. Best Course for Daily Life: CoffeeBreak Italian
Price: free version available ($124 per season of 40 lessons)
Summary: CoffeeBreak Italian is a beginner Italian course that teaches through fun conversations about daily life.
CoffeeBreak Italian is a podcast that includes three seasons: S1 (Beginner Italian), S2 (Lower Intermediate Italian) and S3 (Upper Intermediate Italian).
Over the course of these seasons, Mark, the teacher, and Francesca, an Italian native speaker, will teach you the language through conversations on topics that get more challenging as the course advances.
Some of the topics covered are introductions, ordering food, hotels, using the phone or visiting the doctor, among many others.
The course starts with Mark and Francesca using English and Italian, but they’ll use less and less English as the seasons progress.
This fantastic podcast covers both language and cultural aspects, and since it can be considered an audio course, it’ll allow you to learn Italian grammar and vocabulary as well as improve your listening and speaking skills anywhere you go.
29. Best for Intermediate Learners: Easy Italian
Price: free
Summary: Easy Italian is a YouTube video course that focuses on conversations about different aspects of Italian culture.
Easy Italian is a YouTube video course that’s completely free.
It was created within the popular Easy Languages series, which creates authentic content for languages such as German, French and Russian.
The Easy Italian videos are completely in Italian, so this course is recommended for intermediate learners. They revolve around authentic Italian conversations between the videos’ hosts and native Italian speakers in the streets.
Italian and English subtitles are available on-screen. Each video covers a specific topic, like Italian cuisine or culture. Weekly exercises that accompany the videos, transcripts and other extras are also available for their Patreon patrons.
If the Italian in the videos is too advanced, there’s also a playlist called Super Easy Italian aimed at beginner learners.
30. Best Course for Self-Study: Cyber Italian
Price: free trial available for two weeks; $4.95 for access to beginner, intermediate and advanced lessons
Summary: Cyber Italian is an Italian course for all levels with set lessons and teacher support.
Cyber Italian students interested in self-guided study can choose from the beginner, intermediate or advanced courses.
Each course comes with 20 online lessons comprised of audio and video resources, pronunciation guides, a voice recording system, grammar references and more.
There’s even an “ask-the-prof” service for those moments when you’re feeling lost in the language.
If you’d like something more structured and don’t mind spending a little more, Cyber Italian also offers students the option to take tutored courses or one-on-one private lessons to help perfect their accent and language skills.
31. Best Classroom-like Course: “Italian Language and Culture: Beginner” from edX
Price: free for the audit track; $49 for the verified track
Summary: “Italian Language and Culture: Beginner” from edX teaches you the basics of the Italian language and its surrounding culture using various media.
edX offers university-style online courses available to anyone, anywhere. This particular Italian course (offered by Wellesley College and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology) is so flexible that you can join it at any time—even when it’s already started!
It’s aimed at beginner Italian learners and is self-directed. However, the course’s organization is everything you’d expect from university-style learning.
The course itself is a mixture of video, podcast and textbook work. That means you get the benefit of a lecture-style learning method as well as practical experience learning and speaking Italian.
The best part: after this Italian course, there are two more courses for intermediate and advanced learners to continue to grow their skills.
32. Best for Structured Learning: Udemy
Price: depends on the course
Summary: Udemy offers a number of courses teaching the Italian language aimed at learners of various levels.
Un mercato (a marketplace) for courses presented by experts, Udemy is known for frequent sales that can deliver courses with discounts as high as 85% off the sticker price. The instruction is primarily video-based, although most courses will also have written assignments and downloadable lessons.
For example, there’s “Italian Level 1: Master Speaking Italian” by Dillon March. It actually includes two courses: an Italian introductory course and a travel guide throughout Italy. The introductory course is designed for beginners and those traveling to Italy for the first time, while the travel guide includes modules on some of the most popular Italian cities.
And then there’s “Learn Italian Language: Complete Italian Course for Beginners.” As the name suggests, this is a full online self-paced Italian course that can be purchased for a one-time fee. The course itself includes eight hours of HD video with Italian captions and English subtitles.
Best of all, after you complete the beginner’s course, there’s an intermediate course available.
33. Best for College Credit: Ecampus at Oregon State University
Price: $350 per credit
Summary: First- and second-year Italian learners can take a remote language class through this Oregon State University offering.
Want to learn Italian in a more traditional undergrad format and earn college credit for your Italian studies? Through Oregon State’s acclaimed Ecampus, you can find online courses that’ll build both your Italian fluency and college transcript.
Consistently ranked highly in the list of Best Online Programs from “U.S. News & World Report,” Oregon State’s online program can give you a solid grounding in the Italian language. You can use the Ecampus course schedule to see what’s currently available.
34. Best for Language Proficiency Certifications: Europass Italian Language School
Price: online courses start at €80 or approx. $85, while one-to-one lessons start at €35 per hour or approx. $38 (the hourly rates go down when you book more hours)
Summary: Although the Europass Italian Language School mostly offers in-person courses, they also have online courses and assessments for learners who can’t physically be in Italy.
Europass Italian Language School’s online programs (taught entirely by native speakers), gives learners several options:
- Live online courses with other learners
- Europass Agile Platform (individual study with weekly live stream Q&A)
- One-to-one, customized Italian lessons
- Italian conversation course
- Italian course for children
If you’re not sure about your level of Italian fluency, you have the option to take placement tests to see how much you already know.
And if you’re interested in earning an Italian language proficiency certification, there are Europass online courses designed to prepare you for standardized Italian language exams.
35. Best for Serious Learners: Babbel Italian Language Course
Price: starts at $8.45 per month; lifetime access available for $299.99
Summary: Babbel is an Italian course that utilizes audio, images and text, as well as lessons with dialogue for a more immersive approach.
With Babbel, you can start at the beginner level (A1) and take courses all the way up to the C1 (proficient) level.
The courses combine grammar and vocabulary explanations and the audio and video components are superb.
Alongside the comprehensive beginner and intermediate courses, there are also themed courses focused on idioms, Italian for vacationers and more.
Each course also offers a wealth of exercises to practice the skills you’ve just learned. The courses follow a logical sequence so you can work your way toward proficiency at your own pace.
See our full review of Babbel here.
36. Best for Casual Learners: Language Transfer
Price: free
Summary: Language Transfer is an unstructured method for language learning that’s so stress-free, fun and natural that it doesn’t feel like learning.
Language Transfer is unique in that the course emphasizes listening over reading and writing.
Learners are actually coached not to take notes (although they compensate for it with transcripts). Rather, you’re urged to listen, pause when needed and think about the language as you hear and learn it. Language Transfer recognizes each learner’s individual pace—and encourages everyone to proceed at their own comfortable speed.
The course doesn’t teach Italian with a template of translated materials. Instead, learners are introduced to the language in a conversational, natural way. Lessons consist mostly of conversations with the speaker, who waits for learners to formulate replies in their own time.
The course utilizes audio lessons geared toward learners with absolutely no prior Italian learning, so it’s very basic. As this course progresses, it builds on previous material. It’s definitely casual learning—but it works!
37. Best Free Resource for CEFR Takers: Online Italian Club
Price: free
Summary: Online Italian Club is an online community hub for Italian learners with extra course materials.
The Online Italian Club offers six levels of Italian lessons for learners. Following the Common European Framework for Reference, these levels equate to beginner, pre-intermediate, intermediate, upper-intermediate, advanced and proficient.
Each level has countless lessons for vocabulary and grammar to get you speaking Italian fluently in no time. These lessons include beginner topics such as the present tense up to more advanced topics such as relative pronouns, tense agreement and beyond. The corresponding exercises reinforce whichever topic was just learned, so you can practice your way to full fluency.
Furthermore, the Online Italian Club offers audio files of Italian conversations grouped according to level, as well as a proficiency test and a verb index of over 600 common verbs.
38. Best Paid Resource for CEFR Takers: Italian Virtual School
Price: free trial available (starts at €280 for 10 individual classes at 60 minutes per class; rates effectively go down as more students join the class and the longer the class lasts)
Summary: If you’re serious about taking and passing the CEFR exams, there are few better resources than Italian Virtual School.
Based in Turin, Italian Virtual School has offerings for students at every level per the CEFR standard for language mastery. The teachers at Italian Virtual School all have advanced degrees and certifications for teaching the language to non-natives, as well as extensive experience.
You take a free trial class before you invest in lessons with the school. Lessons are offered one to three times per week, and you can choose between individual and group lessons.
There are courses with standard Italian lessons and separate classes for children. Lovers of Latin and Greek classics, Italian film buffs, amateur etymologists, budding Italian conversationalists and takers of standardized tests can all find a course to fit their needs.
The courses incorporate multimedia sources of Italian into the lessons, including videos, podcasts and text. Information about Italian culture and history is woven into the courses, as well.
39. Best Video Course: One World Italiano
Price: Free
Summary: One World Italiano offers video-based lessons that cover specific topics with grammar exercises.
If you’re looking for a course that’s a little less textbook-based, try One World Italiano’s videos.
You simply log on, pick your lesson and watch away. It’s the perfect method for informal, approachable Italian learning. Each video tackles a specific topic in the Italian language.
The videos are completely in Italian, which may feel a little intimidating for beginner learners, but they include translations, helpful grammar notes and exercises. Think of it as an Italian immersion experience!
After completing the beginner video course, there are subsequent pre-intermediate and intermediate courses you can follow. If you want to complement your video lessons with something else, you can also check out one of One World Italiano’s non-video courses.
40. Best Online Interactive Course: BBC Languages Italian
Price: Free
Summary: While no longer actively updated, the BBC offers an online interactive course for beginning Italian learners.
BBC’s Languages Italian course contains a plethora of audio clips, vocabulary-building materials and grammar explanations, as well as games and exercises for reinforcement.
What’s great is that it links to many other websites such as Italian online news agencies and radio stations. These supplemental resources can support learners as they become more familiar with the language and start applying it in a real-world setting.
Lastly, there’s a handy Italian proficiency test for learners to figure out what level of Italian speaker they are, so they can get right into learning the materials appropriate for them.
41. Best for Community-based Learning: Busuu
Price: starts at $13.95 per month; monthly rates go down when you purchase a subscription for a longer period
Summary: Busuu harnesses the power of its learning community to give you feedback on your Italian writing and speaking.
Busuu has a ton of well-structured Italian lessons with interactive grammar and vocab exercises.
Every time you have a writing or speaking activity to complete, your work is submitted to fluent and native Italian speakers for review. Once you receive their feedback, you can interact with them directly.
Ask them questions and get more information about how to refine your Italian word choices and phrasing—or perfect your Italian pronunciation, accent and intonation.
Find out more about Busuu in this review.
Why Take an Italian Language Course?
I know taking an Italian language course can sound intimidating and even expensive, but hear me out.
Italian courses are an awesome way to learn the Italian language because they’re structured to ensure that you get all the important stuff covered. They normally hit all the bases: speaking, listening, reading and writing.
In particular, online Italian language courses help keep you focused and on track.
Let’s be real: sometimes life gets busy, and what starts off as an ambitious Italian learning goal becomes just another forgotten item on a to-do list. But with a course, you can’t help but stay focused.
Italian courses are especially useful if you’re looking for concise definitions and explanations.
Maybe you’ve picked up some basic vocabulary and comprehension skills and now you’re dying to actually communicate with native Italian speakers.
Sometimes the best way to build on your beginner skills—especially when it comes to grammar—is just to have someone explain how the rules work to you.
Now, what if I told you that you could take an inexpensive Italian course without even leaving the comfort of your own home?
I mean, taking a course in Italy would be ideal, but with the many resources available online, it’s possible to save the cost of a flight, accommodation and course fees and still get a quality Italian language education.
These online courses typically offer a wealth of great audio and reading resources perfectly targeted for your learning level. You’ll never have to wonder if something is too advanced for you to do again.
Best of all, some Italian courses allow you to connect with instructors and classmates.
This is fantastic because, ultimately, we learn Italian so we can speak it. Having a course instructor or course peers means added practice and direction for your Italian communication skills.
So, get a good matita (pencil) and andiamo a scuola (let’s go to school), Italian learners!
Download: This blog post is available as a convenient and portable PDF that you can take anywhere. Click here to get a copy. (Download)
