How to Start Learning Italian

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In 2009, my biggest hobby after languages was making videos.

I combined the two on my multilingual site, making videos about my travels and other subjects in seven languages. It gave me another way to practise as I travelled. This video was the start of a longer-term project: making videos about languages as I learned them or visited places where they were spoken.

This first one is about how to start learning Italian, filmed while I was passing through Rome in 2009. You can only say so much in less than three minutes, so think of it as a light-hearted introduction rather than a detailed lesson. More than anything, it gave me a good excuse to dress up and act silly around Rome.

The English version is embedded below. I also made an Italian-language version, which is still on YouTube.

Before we get started, if you’re looking for an online Italian course, here’s the course I recommend: Italian Uncovered – Learn Italian Through the Power of Story, a course with a fascinating new method by my friend Olly. You can try it for free for 7 days!

Italian: a funny 3-minute introduction

(video in English)

The opening line, Benvenuti a Roma, la città eterna, means “Welcome to Rome, the Eternal City.” Benvenuti is plural because I am speaking to everyone watching. Later, the on-screen status should read Ho visto il Colosseo! (“I saw the Colosseum!”), with a capital C. The closing ciao is informal.

All that familiar-looking vocabulary is helpful when you are trying to recognise Italian, but it is not a pronunciation rule. Even when a word looks almost identical to its English counterpart, listen to Italian audio to pick up the stress and sounds.

Useful links

Most of the original resource list from 2009 has since disappeared. These are better places to continue:

• The Italian Learning Hub brings our current Italian guides together.
• Basic Italian phrases gives you practical language for your first conversations.
• WordReference remains a useful English–Italian dictionary and forum.

The main idea from the video still holds up: use Italian regularly, keep something small to study handy for those moments when you are waiting, and find Italian media about subjects you already enjoy. A short daily status update can still be useful practice, but it does not have to be public. Save it in your notes, send it to a language partner or ask a teacher to correct it. Then do it again tomorrow.