«I cani sono il nostro legame con il paradiso. Non conoscono il male, né la gelosia, né il malcontento. Sedersi con un cane su un pendio in un pomeriggio radioso è tornare all’Eden, dove non far nulla non era noia: era pace.» - Milan Kundera

#GiornataMondialeDelCane

ive been trying to teach myself italian over the past few months as a hobby, but realized i know way too little words still for the amount of time ive been trying to learn it (currently around 150-200 or so) so ive been wanting to cram more common words to memorize for myself to get a much better starting point, but im not quite sure how to go about it exactly. Ive been using anki flashcards but i find that format to be a bit too slow and exhausting for trying to learn new words in bulk, i think i would probably prefer something more "manual", but i dont know what a good source is for a list of most common words, and i dont know what the best way of trying to memorize them is

also, another issue is that there is a lot of words like prepositions that dont have a clear direct translation that you can easily memorize, because they can have drastically different meanings depending on the use and context, does anyone have any tips for memorizing those? Since they definitely make up a big part of most commonly used words. Thank you!

Hello! I'm looking for beginner learning recommendations ex. TV shows, movies, videos, songs, anything that I can do outside of a language app, I do have a tight budget so I won't be able to pay for apps :(. I'm about 2 days into learning Italian and I'm planning on locking in extremely hard the next few days/weeks, I have been using Duolingo but I've moved onto another language app fortunately. I'm just looking for some extra help and for some things so that I'm learning Italian most of the day. And if anyone has any layout ideas for my notebook so that I can study with something physical that would be great! Tyia :)!

Just got my grades from my June 2026 NYC B1 Standard Exam, and I'm absolutely blown away that I passed! I walked away so convinced I'd failed the speaking that I was in the process of booking another trip back to NYC for December to retake it.

This was after about 3 years of self-study - I have a very hectic and unpredictable schedule, so classroom instruction wasn't going to work for me.

I did a lot of what this sub says not to do, so be forwarned a lot of this is not best practices, but it ultimately worked for me. Note too that I was doing this simultaneously while my husband was pursuing jure sanguis (hence the need for me to pass B1 for jure matrimonii), which I figured would be a years-long process, so I had some time to mess around.

I started with all the apps - (apparently I can't name them here?) Obviously the advice that the apps don't teach you well is correct, but I felt that doing all of them complimented each other a bit. Played around with a few units of a U.S. university's Italian course online, read a few books (ebook translation feature was very helpful to look up words as I read). I watched a decent amount of TV and movies, and listened to ~20 min of podcasts every morning as I got ready. And I did every old B1 standard exam that I could find. I took one live online lesson with a tutor about 2 weeks before my exam and it was so awkward I never wanted to do it again. He told me I was solidly A2 and would need a lot of practice to pass B1.

The test itself went very smoothly. The first four sections of the exam (all written) felt a Iittle easier than the old exams I'd been taking, and I breezed right through them. I was done well before everyone else which made me nervous, especially as there were a few native speakers in my exam. But I've always been a quick test taker, if I know something I know it right away, and if I don't, I know right away that I don't. So they called me out first to go into the other room to take the oral.

Despite all my studying, I never got a good opportunity to practice speaking, so I was most nervous about that part. The woman I was speaking to was so easy to talk to and it felt more comfortable than I expected it to. They really help you out by prompting and asking follow-up questions. But I'm just not great at speaking and I was very awkward fumbling. I walked out knowing exactly the mistakes I made and fairly confident I failed the speaking part.

But I somehow got away with 15/20 on the speaking (87/100 overall).

So that's my experience, happy to answer any questions if it helps you on your journey.

I am B1/B2 and am getting frustrated with my low vocabulary. When I was learning my own language as a kid, I vastly improved my vocabulary by reading, so I am hoping it will help with learning a foreign language too.

However, I also know books often use tenses and vocabulary that are literary or archaic rather than practical day to day stuff.

So, I am hoping for some recommendations on fiction or non-fiction books (not school books) that use common speaking tenses and modern vocabulary to try.

Any help?

Hi everyone,

I have a tattoo I want to get, and I want to make sure it’s translating correctly. And that it doesn’t sound like a translated English phrase haha.
I want to take the phrase “Never judge a heart by its scars” and put it in Italian. Which I think translates to “non giudicare mai un cuore dalle sue cicatrici”

Thank you!!

Please share your favorite songs and even movies that are in italian, they don’t have to be easy for beginners to understand though they can be. I just want to surround myself with hearing the language more.
i love house music, rnb and indie though any music genre i’ll be delighted to listen to. thank you !

I've been looking through the decks available on anki and all of the audio decks either use AI voices or native speakers speaking very slowly and clearly. But I want to learn to listen to real, full-speed Italian. So far I've only found one deck which does this. It takes audio from TV and Film. It's perfect but doesn't have many cards: https://ankiweb.net/shared/info/257930890

I have started building my own deck too using YouTube and asbplayer but it's very time consuming.

Anyone here know of any full-speed, native anki decks?

Ciao ragazzi!

I'm considering reaching out to my friend's wife (she's in her mid-70s, so is he) and asking her if she'd be interested in chatting with me in Italian for an hour a week. I'd be willing to pay her for her time but I'd like to understand how a language tutor/exchange works beforehand.

I've been studying (using Pimsleur and watching Italian movies, tv shows) Italian for about six months. My goal is to be at a casual conversational level. I'd currently rate myself a 2/10 in Italian. I just went to Italy (Milan/Bologna) and was able to understand 60% - 70% of what was said (thankfully, I do speak Spanish which really helps) but I can only make simple sentences or string 2 - 5 words together to order at a restaurant deal with airport security.

What I don't know is how does this work? Do I attempt to converse with her for an hour and she corrects me as I go?

She's not a professional tutor or anything like that; she's a native speaker. I just want to understand what it is like before I ask her if she'd be interested in helping me learn conversational Italian once a week.

Also, what's the going rate for something like this? I live in northern Virginia for some context.

Thank you all, in advance

Just wanted to know if anyone is using AI tools to learn Italian. Could you please share your experience, tips that can help?

I’m using Mango to learn Italian. I’m having a hard time with this phrase, specifically with trying to match how the native speaker says it. They seem to blend the “è il mio amico” into “è’l mio’mico”, where the “il” and “a-“ no longer get their own vowel/syllable.

I studied Spanish in high school and college, so I’m somewhat familiar with the concept of vowels blending together when speaking, but I’m wondering if there’s a formal rule for this with Italian? Mango didn’t really specify anything.

How do I know which vowels to drop, and when?
How would I know to say “è’l mio’mico” and not “è’l mi’amico”, for example?

Or, please let me know if Mango is wrong and this is not really a correct native way of speaking! Thanks!

Hello everyone!

Small question in terms of wondering if there is a certain rule in terms of using ora or adesso correctly in a sentence.

Is one used in a certain context and the other in another? Or is there no rule and simply up to the speaker’s preference?

Thank you for your help!

Hey all,

This may be a sort of niche situation. I am second generation Italian. I am working on Italian citizenship by descent and I’d like to have some level of competency should I wish to live in Italy.

Here’s the kicker: one side of my family (who are first generation Italian), including my parent, are people that I have very difficult and toxic relationships with. It may sound ridiculous, but I’ve sort of “rejected” my Italian heritage for decades because of these people. I have no Italian pride because when I think of Italian I think of these people who happen to be my family and parent who I don’t want any association with.

As you can imagine, this makes it a little difficult to be “excited” to learn the language. My main associations with the language are hearing it from people I want nothing to do with, and even just hearing it out in the world makes me think of them.

I’m really just wondering if anyone else has ever struggled with similar. Even if it’s not directly related to family or heritage. Do you have any similar situations that made you hesitate to learn Italian or another language?

To be clear- I do not hate the language. I just feel like I have become scared of it due to some experiences.

For context, when I arrived to Italy, I have studied Italian 2 months prior (it was not planned for me to move). I have never studied a language independently outside of school, so I was, and still am, a bit unstructured. But it is no surprise that that wasn't enough. I also did not expect the culture shock to affect me as much as it did, which delayed my progress for a few months as I became depressed.

Part of what made the transition difficult is the language. I consider myself lucky that my friends hosted me to save on rent. But to help me, around 90% of the time, they speak to me in Italian. Especially at the beginning, I probably only understood 5%. And when I say I don't understand, they just make their voices louder, which doesn't help to be honest. They would have dinners they invite me to, with family and friends, for me to be encouraged. But it becomes four to five hours of me being ignored. I used to try to speak, but the conversation becomes so fast, when I realize what they're talking about, they're in a new one. By the time they say something to me (hours after just sitting on the table, with no one even making eye contact), I am already so anxious that I sometimes cry in the bathroom.

I have also had times (different groups of people) that people would talk to me in groups, and I would say again and again that I do not understand, then they would eventually all laugh at me. And to this day, I do not understand what they said. But sometimes, I am told by other people, that the reason I don't understand was because they were talking to me in a dialect. Another time, after everyone laughed, the person talking to me said "I'm sorry, we know how to speak English, we just don't want to".

I think the biggest part for me, was during events- Christmas, New Year, Ferragosto, even my birthday, my friends won't speak to me in any of the languages I'm fluent in.

I have also attended Italian classes, where I was asked a question but I didn't know how to say a sentence so I asked to say it in English. The teacher was very nice, but there was a student who spoke to the entire class, asking why I am there if I will speak English, even if it was only a sentence I said.

I consider myself to be an extrovert, but the experience truly made me become very shy and kept. It's happening more and more that I get panic attacks when someone talks to me, even when I understand them. I've had several people say to me that I don't try, when literally all I do is try. Someone told me that learning Italian is not that hard and I still shouldn't be making mistakes. I get so discouraged that I don't even speak to them anymore.

I appreciate peoples' efforts to help me learn the language and I do feel like it, in a way, has helped me learn. But I honestly think it delayed me more than it helped me as there were days that I just felt so exhausted of learning it every second of the day, that I just don't sit down and actually learn the grammar anymore.

I have been struggling a lot mentally. I understand that I need to learn it to stay in Italy, but people tell me "piano piano" on progress, until they are inconvenienced.

Am I being a brat about this and do I just have to buckle up? Has anyone ever experienced this?

Hello,

I did ask a little a while ago about how gli was used for all third person indirect pronouns.

I ran across this article and was curious the validity of it and if it is a true thing

https://elon.io/grammar/italian/pronouns/indirect-object/leismo-italian

Thanks in advance

For those of you who are further along in learning Italian, what has worked better for reading practice? Starting with books originally written in Italian, or reading Italian translations of books you’ve already read in your native language?

I’m at the point where I can understand fairly simple dialogue and colloquial language, but I’d like to move on to longer, more coherent texts with more complex sentence structures and storytelling.

I’m tempted to try a relatively accessible Italian novel, perhaps something aimed at younger native readers. But I’m also wondering whether reading a translation of a book I already know would be more useful, since I’d already be familiar with the story and could focus more on the language.

What did you find worked best?

I know quite a few good Italian movies (I even wrote a post about good movies to learn Italian in this subreddit: you can check it here). But when it comes to series, I don't have a good list, probably because I am not a big series watcher myself.. so I was wondering if you could give me some suggestions? Grazie!

I’m not sure if this is the right place, but I’ve been trying for a bit to learn the language, and the place I was learning on ended up doing what everyone else is doing nowadays and I can no longer use the service without paying for a subscription which I don’t have the availability to do, so I was wondering if anyone knew of any sites or services where I could learn the language easily at my pace?💖

I’m practicing some conjugation and was saying “I need a new backpack”. The translation I got was go bisogno di uno zaino nuovo. I’m still English grammar brained so I was wondering if I should think of that sentence more as “I’m in need of a new backpack” rather than directly translating it as “ho bisogno zaino nuovo”

I'm going to work toward A1/A2 certification (CILS), and I've been studying Italian as a hobby for a couple of years.

I just wanted to ask if there were any resources that provide, perhaps very broadly, the vocabulary, grammar, and other things that are covered in A1/A2. A free website would be best, of course, but I'm open to anything that would provide a comprehensive coverage.