Italian Videos: The 14 Best Resources for Learning Real Italian
Videos are very effective language learning tools.
In this post, I’ll give you 14 awesome places where you can learn Italian through videos.
Contents
- 14 Unbeatable Online Places to Learn Italian With Videos
- The 3 Must-have Mindsets for Learning Italian through Videos
Download: This blog post is available as a convenient and portable PDF that you can take anywhere. Click here to get a copy. (Download)
14 Unbeatable Online Places to Learn Italian With Videos
Weilà Tom
Level: Beginner
Weilà Tom is a YouTube channel for mid- to late-beginner learners (those at the A2 level). Tom is an American himself who learned Italian on his own, so his videos are perfect for getting an insider perspective on the learning process.
Tom’s videos are a mixture of grammar explanations, vocabulary hauls and personal vlogs completely in Italian.
There’s also content exclusively in Italian that is comprised of excellent listening comprehension videos for B1 (intermediate) learners.
FluentU Italian
Level: All levels
FluentU features hundreds of authentic Italian video clips from popular vlogs, movies, music videos and more—all with interactive subtitles for language learning.
When you watch a video, you can click on any word in the subtitles to get everything you need to understand the word. Aside from its definition, you’ll also see a professional translation and even sentence examples from other videos.
This lets you pick up new words too because you can easily save them as flashcards. The program will then quiz you on these based on spaced repetition. Quizzes include listening exercises, video snippets, vocabulary and grammar questions and even speaking practice on mobile, so you can practice all the major language skills!
BBC Italian
Level: Beginner
BBC Italian’s offerings for learning Italian are some of the oldest online, but they have stood the test of time. Their video courses are for A1 learners (beginners), and even though this page is archived and no longer updated, the videos are still fantastic for learning Italian.
BBC Italian also includes Talk Italian, a course that has short videos featuring a conversation or scene completely in Italian with accompanying transcripts and vocabulary lists available for learners to use.
Other resources include lists of useful phrases and slang, an Italian proficiency test and access to Italian media.
Italiano Automatico
Level: Intermediate
Italiano Automatico is a fantastic YouTube channel for emerging intermediate learners at the B1 level.
This channel creates videos in a vlog or podcast-style format. The videos are solely in Italian, which is perfect for intermediate learners to immerse themselves in the language, but English subtitles are available.
The video topics here include Italian grammar and vocabulary explanations, but they also touch on real-life topics such as personal development, language learning and professional and personal wellbeing.
I Learn Italian
Level: All levels
I Learn Italian is a website that creates content and videos for beginners all the way up to advanced learners.
Whatever your level, you can check out their “Learn Italian with Movies” section.
There are short clips and films for beginners, while intermediate and advanced learners can tackle longer videos, up to full-length documentaries. Video topics include art, society and interviews with Italian native speakers who are prominent in their fields.
Best of all, each video includes comprehension and short answer questions.
Only some of the videos include subtitles and speed adjustment, so save the videos without those features for a more concrete C1 level of Italian.
In addition to video content, I Learn Italian also hosts other resources such as song recommendations and grammar lessons for all levels.
LearnAmo
Level: Advanced
LearnAmo is a YouTube channel for learners at the C1 or C2 level. These videos focus primarily on advanced grammar topics, with concise explanations as well as comprehension questions.
The videos are completely in Italian but, as usual, YouTube allows for subtitles and speed adjustment. Grammar topics include the Italian congiuntivo (subjunctive), indirect speech, pronoun verbs and more.
In addition to its grammar topics, LearnAmo also has Italian-language vlogs, tests and quizzes.
Italian Language & Culture (edX)
Level: Beginner
edX is an online platform that provides university-level courses covering a wide range of fields. It has tie-ins with distinguished institutions like Harvard, MIT and UC Berkeley.
This Italian Language & Culture course is for beginners and taught by Wellesley College. Here you’ll learn basic, everyday Italian communication skills and grammatical structures. In addition, you’ll immerse yourself in Italian culture through its focus on food, film and travel.
You’ll learn a lot of diverse Italian words and phrases from the different types of videos in this course. You have situational videos where you follow eight Italian students as they go about their everyday activities. You also have video interviews where native speakers discuss their rich Italian culture and traditions. And of course, you have videos of classroom lessons where you look at different parts of speech.
The self-paced course is free—all you need to do is create an edX account to access it.
Oh, and when you’re done, you can proceed to their intermediate and advanced programs which offer more of the same for students at higher skill levels.)
Easy Italian
Level: Intermediate
Easy Italian is a YouTube channel for mid- to late-intermediate learners at the B1 and B2 levels. It is a video series from Easy Languages, which is well-known for teaching languages through its “on the streets” interview format.
Each video has a specific topic such as Italian food, culture or language, then interviews native speakers about the topic in an Italian-speaking location.
While the speech in the video can be a bit quick and speckled with slang and informal language, the videos have built-in Italian subtitles and English translations. I recommend watching the tougher parts with a slower speed and really honing in on the informal aspects of the language—this is how it is actually spoken!
One World Italiano
Level: Beginner
One World is an Italian language school based in Cagliari, Italy that offers not only online and in-person Italian courses but also immersive video classes on YouTube.
On One World Italiano’s YouTube channel, you’ll meet teacher Veronica, who will enthusiastically teach you a variety of topics from Italian grammar to vocabulary.
Alternatively, if you enjoy history and want to learn more about Italian culture, there are plenty of topics available for you to choose from such as La Festa della Liberazione (Liberation Day), with key information as well as vocabulary and grammar explanations.
The best part of One World Italiano’s YouTube channel is that the videos are in Italian, meaning you can immerse yourself completely in the Italian language! Plus, you can also use the subtitles to assist your learning.
Dolce Vita
Level: Beginner
Nope, this isn’t the classic movie by the revered Fellini.
Instead, it’s a YouTube channel that talks about the Italian language and culture (not necessarily high culture).
It covers a wide array of topics like basic rules for Italian pronunciation, useful common expressions and days of the week. And because it discusses culture, you’ll get a dose of videos like Italian gestures, as well as “5 Ways to Piss Off Italians.” And you’ll also get some recommendations on the best places to visit in Italy.
The videos are bite-sized lessons, with many spoken in a mixture of Italian and English. There are also some videos that are spoken mostly in Italian, but you’ll be aided by English graphics that pop up every now and then.
The hosts are friendly, playful and don’t take themselves too seriously. So you shouldn’t either!
ItalianPod101
Level: All levels
ItalianPod101 is presented by Innovative Language—a leader in creating dynamic and authentic content. This site also offers lessons in other languages like German, French, Spanish and Russian.
ItalianPod101’s videos are complete with all the aids that a language learner might want. You have accurate translations and subtitles, which can be really hard to find, plus colorful cartoons and graphics.
It’s one of the richest video resources online. The YouTube channel alone has more than 1,000 videos, ranging from grammar discussions to fun facts about Italian food and culture. There are even 24/7 livestream videos for speaking practice, listening practice and everyday expressions.
If you love these videos and find yourself picking up Italian quickly—and something tells me you might—you should probably consider investing in their complete ItalianPod101 course. This has audio and video lessons combined with interactive learning features like flashcards and line-by-line explanations.
Italiano con Luca
Level: Advanced
Italiano con Luca is perfect for learning Italian at its highest levels because the videos are completely in Italian.
In fact, there are more than 450 advanced Italian lessons available. Each of these videos includes a concise explanation of the topic as well as topical examples that you can immediately apply.
Being hosted on YouTube like many others on this list, the videos include subtitles in English and Italian. There are over 50 videos on Italian proverbs as well as videos on advanced Italian verbs and idiomatic expressions.
Most videos run between three to 15 minutes in length—perfect for bite-sized advanced language practice.
Speak Italian With Your Mouth Full
Level: Beginner
This Italian learning series is part of MIT Open Courseware, an initiative by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) to put actual class lectures and lessons online, for free.
Speak Italian With Your Mouth Full uses cooking to teach Italian.
Each class session teaches students how to cook a healthy Mediterranean dish. For example, lesson number one is pasta, lesson number two is risotto and lesson number three is pizza. Along the way, some Italian language lessons are thrown into the mix, but mainly you’ll learn by immersion.
So, if you’ve fallen in love with Italian because you’ve fallen in love with Italian food, then this 13-part course might just be perfect for you!
Italian 101 (The Travel Linguist)
Level: Beginner
Italian 101 is a video course from The Travel Linguist. The Travel Linguist creates beginner-level videos for multiple languages such as German, Russian, French and others. This series is for Italian learners who are at a pre-A1 or A1 level.
Primarily, the Italian 101 video course includes 20 vocabulary lessons for learning basic Italian. The videos are hosted on YouTube, allowing for auto-generated subtitles in Italian and English as well as control over speed.
Each video recites words related to a beginner topic such as numbers, travel or food in clear Italian and then gives learners a chance to repeat it.
The 3 Must-have Mindsets for Learning Italian through Videos
To make these Italian video resources work, you’ll also need to have the three mindsets that I’ll discuss here. When you’re employing videos to learn Italian, active watching is the name of the game:
Delight in Repetition
The cornerstone of all learning is repetition.
If you’re going to be watching your way to Italian fluency, be ready to repeatedly watch the videos until the cows come home.
But make no mistake, it’s not unconscious, mindless repetition we’re talking about here. It’s mindful repetition. That means you’re actively watching the video, noticing the twangs in the pronunciation, discerning the differences in verb forms, catching the subtle nuances of the languages and the gestures that go with it.
Every time you catch an authentic Italian video, keep a specific goal in mind. For example, you could be listening and watching for vocabulary one time, then adjective phrases the next and then maybe you’d be observing sentence construction later on.
Celebrate Mistakes
You may think that because you’re watching a video you can’t make mistakes.
But remember that you’re watching actively. You may not even understand the lesson in the first place, or you may have a hard time memorizing featured vocabulary words.
Instead of being weighed down by your perceived inability, giving yourself some slack would be more productive in the long run.
So what if you don’t understand the video lesson even after watching it a few times? Expect mistakes, then move on. Laugh at your humanity, and learn from those mistakes—they’re a natural part of the process.
Prioritize Active Engagement
Actively participate in the little tasks that the teacher asks you to do in the video. For example, if the teacher wishes you to enunciate some Italian word aloud, then do so.
If the teacher in the video gives an assignment or issues a “challenge” to learners, like looking for real-world opportunities to apply what you’ve learned, then try it out.
To squeeze every learning opportunity from an Italian video, you’ll have to work hard even when no video clip is playing in front of you. Try integrating the lessons into your routines and living them.
For example, you can use Italian vocabulary and intersperse it with English every chance you get. Exclaim and curse in Italian while watching shows or driving. Mumble Italian to yourself while doing any everyday activity.
With this guide, you already have 14 resources with some of the best online videos for learning the Italian language. Combine them with the three explosive learning mindsets that we’ve just talked about, and you have a combo that makes learning Italian practically unstoppable.
So, what are you going to do about it?
Download: This blog post is available as a convenient and portable PDF that you can take anywhere. Click here to get a copy. (Download)
