Italian language resources – Language Links Database

Italian – (italiano or lingua italiana) is a Romance language spoken mainly in Europe: Italy, Switzerland, San Marino, Vatican City, as a second language in Malta, Slovenia and Croatia, by minorities in Eritrea, France, Libya, Monaco, Montenegro, and Somalia, and by expatriate communities in the Americas and Australia. Many speakers are native bilinguals of both standardised Italian and other regional languages. 

More information: Wikipedia

Native speakers: 64 million Italian proper, native and native bilingual (2013), 85 million (L1 plus L2 speakers) (2012)

Official language in: Italy, Switzerland, San Marino, Vatican City, European Union


Italian Grammar and Pronunciation



  • Learnalanguage.com - “Our Italian language lessons and courses are completely FREE with audio flash cards, interactive review games, and tons of free language lessons. Learning will be fun and easy with hundreds of completely free lessons. Start your online Italian language course now!”
  • Oneworlditaliano.com - Courses, lessons, exercises, dialogues and more
  • FSI Language Courses - Includes the original and updated courses, each with textbooks (pdf) and 30 audio lessons (mp3)
  • FSI Language Courses - Textbook, glossary, culture notes (pdf) and 21 audio lessons (mp3)
  • FSI Language Courses - Textbook and instructor’s manual (pdf) and 18 audio lessons (mp3)
  • BBC - An introduction to Italian presented by the BBC
  • Zapitalian.com - “A free internet resource for those interested in learning the Italian language. On the sections below, you will find everything you need to learn proper Italian, including audio files to help you improve your spoken Italian. We are constantly updating the site to help you learn for free!”
  • Poliglo.com - Poliglo’s courses to learn languages are structured using 1000 words to learn. Each course has four levels, and each level has 250 words, the first section is “250 words” the second section is “500 words”, the third section is “750 words” and the fourth and last section is “1000 words”.
  • Italian.about.com - “Learn Italian with these free online language lessons. Includes lessons on grammar, spelling and pronunciation, and lessons on nouns, verbs, adverbs, objects, and other parts of speech.”
  • Italianlanguageguide.com - vocabulary, grammar and pronunciation
  • LanguageGuide - practice Italian vocabulary, expressions, the alphabet and numbers
  • Italianizeyourself.com - “Our course is intended for everyone who wants to learn to speak Italian, but is new to the language, and may not be very familiar with grammar.
    Our free online lessons are designed so that you can deductively understand grammar rules from dialogues and readings, and reproduce them in the practice section. Watch our videos, and try and get an ear for the sounds of the language.”
  • Goethe-verlag.com - 200 Italian tests for learners of different levels
  • Iluss.it - an introduction to Italian presented by the BBC
  • Learn101 - “All the lessons contain audio and are all offered for free. We will learn the alphabet together. We will also review some simple grammar rules, practice common phrases, and we will have fun memorizing many important vocabulary lists.”
  • MyLanguages - “Check courses about adjectives, adverbs, articles, gender (feminine, masculine…), negation, nouns, numbers, phrases, plural, prepositions, pronouns, questions, verbs, vocabulary, excercises.”
  • ILanguages - This site is designed to teach you and help you learn Italian for free through vocabulary, phrases, grammar and flashcards (vocabulary trainer)
  • Hello-World - Italian Lessons For Children – More than 700 free  games and activities
  • Verbix - Online Verb Conjugator
  • Oggi-domani.com - The Interactive Course that Makes Italian Easy to Learn
  • Italian.speak7.com - Italian Lessons
  • Locuta.com - “A project of Centro Studi ItalianiTM, aimed at providing free on-line, useful information on difficult aspects of the Italian language to students, teachers, translators, writers.” Tons of useful materials.
  • YesItalian.net - A Lot of useful lessons
  • Kappalanguageschool.com - Language lessons and exercises
  • Lifeinitaly.com - Extensive Italian Course
  • Italianizeyourself.com - Italian lessons
  • IeLanguages.com - Italian Tutorials Index: Basic Phrases, Vocabulary and Grammar
  • Mmdtkw.org - Complete Italian Grammar
  • Italyheritage.com - Learn Italian: a Course for English Speakers
  • Italiangrammarsite.net - A guide to the structure and use of the Italian Language
  • Uvm.edu - Italian Grammar Site. You will find here explanations of the basic structures of Italian grammar, as well as many exercises through which you can practice what you have learned.
  • Italian-grammar.net - Italian worksheets for beginners, intermediate, and advanced levels
  • Iltavoloitaliano.com - Free printable Italian worksheets as well as basic video and audio lessons
  • Italian.about.com - Worksheets, activities, drills, and Italian grammar review
  • WikiBooks - Italian lessons
  • SQA Easy/Middle/Hard - Find past papers and marking instructions for your revision. You can search by topic and or refine by subject and level. To add the matching marking instructions simply tick the box.


Digitized Grammar Books



  • Csclub.uwaterloo.ca L’Italiano secondo il “metodo natura - The further you learn, the more complicated the text becomes
  • Eric.ed.gov Post Language Program: Italian Course.This Foreign Service Institute (FSI) introductory course in Italian is designed especially for use by U.S. personnel at overseas missions. The fifteen units of the text cover basic vocabulary, pronunciation exercises, brief grammar notes, and conversation drills. Words and phrases used are intended for practical, everyday usage (1965)
  • Eric.ed.gov E.I.L. Italian: An Audio-Lingual Course. Volume I - This basic textbook for Italian contains 10 units. The text is adaptable for use in an academic institution (Completion time is expected to be one year.), in an intensive program (completion time is about 90-120 hours.), or in independent study. The vocabulary is limited and only basic, essential, grammatical structures are included (1969), 216 pages (pdf).
  • Eric.ed.gov Italian Basic Course (1971), 109 pages (pdf)
  • Google Books Painless Italian by Marcel Danesi (2007)
  • Google Books Italian Grammar, 2nd Ed by Marcel Danesi (2002)
  • Google Books Using Italian: A Guide to Contemporary Usage by J. J. Kinder,V. M. Savini (2004)
  • Google Books Italian Grammar Drills by Paola Nanni-Tate (2012)
  • Google Books Italian Now!: A Level One Worktext by Marcel Danesi (2005)


Italian Vocabulary



  • FreeRice.com Vocabulary quiz. For each answer you get right, the website donates 10 grains of rice to the United Nations World Food Program. Please support this noble cause!
  • Education.vic.gov.au - Thematic Vocabulary
  • TravLang - Vocabulary For Travelers
  • Cram.com - Thousand and thousands of flashcards
  • Quizlet.com - Thousand and thousands of flashcards
  • Lang.italiano.free.fr - Thematic vocabulary (on the left)  
  • FieldSupport - Language Survival Kits
  • DigitalDialects - Vocabulary Learning Games
  • InternetPolyglot - Language Learning Games
  • Loecsen.com - Basic words and useful phrases you will need for your trip (with audio and pdf)
  • Conjuguemos.com - “This page lists exercises to practice vocabulary from many of the most common Italian books. You can also access the vocabulary as a list or as flashcards by clicking on the appropriate link.”
  • SurfaceLanguages - Learn phrases in the Italian language online by selecting the phrases that you want to learn from the list. These cover a wide variety of topics. Listen to and copy the native speech, and learn with flashcards.
  • Uebersetzung.at - Tongue Twisters
  • MasterAnyLanguage - Flashcards for learners of all levels
  • Italian.about.com - Language games and quizes


Vocabulary-related (and digitized) E-books




Italian Reading Materials




Italian Dictionaries




Digitized Dictionaries




Italian Listening and Video Resources



PODCASTS / AUDIOBOOKS



  • ItalianPod101 - 27 lessons
  • Speak Italian With Your Mouth Full by Paola Rebusco, Graham Gordon Ramsay. The participants in this seminar will dive into learning basic conversational Italian, Italian culture, and the Mediterranean diet. 51 lessons.
  • My Daily Phrase Italian by Radio Lingua Network. Learn Italian with teacher Mark as he guides you through the basics of the Italian language. In 100 episodes you will learn enough to cope with lots of common situations you may find yourself in while travelling in Italy. 121 lessons.
  • Let’s Speak Italian - Your daily Italian language podcast where you will learn to speak Italian in just minutes a day. We start from the very beginning and learn popular phrases, grammar, vocabulary, pronunciation, all in easy to digest lessons never more than 5 minutes in length, 5 days a week. 6 lessons.
  • LearnItalianPod - Learn Italian with free podcasts. No need to attend a classroom lesson. Use LearnItalianPod to learn Italian when and where is most convenient for you. See how 5 minutes a day can make the difference! 175 lessons.
  • Italian by SBS Radio. Our podcast service delivers tailor-made versions of our programs which include current affairs, interviews and regular segments from Australia, Italy and around the world. 20 lessons (new are being published regularly).
  • Italian Survival Phrases - 18 lessons.
  • ITunes Radio Arlecchino: Italian Grammar and Culture Podcast By College of Liberal Arts, University of Texas at Austin. 22 lessons.
  • ITunes Free Italian lessons, and podcast at FreeItalianSchool. 25 lessons.
  • Italian Podcast by Linguistica 360 - In our course we emphasize all aspects of language learning from listening comprehension, rapid vocabulary expansion, exposure to Italian grammar and common idiomatic expressions, to pronunciation practice and interactive grammar exercises. 82 lessons.
  • Maxmondo Incontro Italiano – Learn Italian ! For intermediate to advanced learners interested in all things Italian. Audioshows in this podcast are accompanied by a magazine that contains the complete transcipt of the audio and additional vocabulary and exercises.
  • Italiano Automatico Podcast by Alberto Arrighini. “Un modo facile e naturale per arrivare a parlare l’italiano come dei veri italiani!” 61 lessons.
  • Newsinslowitalian.com - In our course we emphasize all aspects of language learning from listening comprehension, rapid vocabulary expansion, exposure to Italian grammar and common idiomatic expressions, to pronunciation practice and interactive grammar exercises. In our program we discuss the Weekly News, Italian grammar, and Italian expressions, and much more at a slow pace so that you can understand almost every word and sentence.
  • Forvo - Over 88000 words pronounced by native speakers


TV / VIDEO / MOVIES



  • Italia-film.org - Website with a lot of Italian films
  • MyEasyTV - A List of over 70 TV stations
  • Wwitv.com - A List of over 40 TV stations
  • YouTube - A List of YT video lessons
  • Reddit - A List of over 90 movies (with links)
  • YouTube - Over 5000 Italian videos on YT
  • Criterion.com - A List of over 60 classic Italian movies with descriptions (but without links)
  • University of Berkley - Long list of Italian classic movies (with descriptions but without links)


RADIO



  • Rad.io - A list of over 350 Italian stations


MUSIC



If you want to help with expanding this list of resources, please send me your suggestions here.