I’m traveling to Italy for a work trip at the end of June, and would like to pick up just some very basic words & phrases (like yes/no/thank you/sorry, “where is the bathroom?”, “where is the train station?”, “can this dish be made vegetarian?”, “I don’t speak Italian”, and “no, I didn’t vote for him”, etc.)
Had I more time, I would’ve loved to spend a few years learning the basics at a community college or whatever. But on a crunch, what’s the best way in 2025 to pick up some basic tourist phrases? Are there any good apps these days, or particular YouTube channels, or any fancy AI tools that can help me learn basic pronunciation and such? I do best with audio samples and repetition, and also the opportunity to practice speaking and get feedback. If there was a way to converse with a real or fake Italian person, I’d love that. I’d be willing to pay.
I have some experience with language learning: English was a second language for me, and I also spent several years learning French. But both were a long time ago, when I was younger and books and CDs were still in vogue. 40-year-old me isn’t as quick at anything anymore, but still excited to learn. Are there any tools that make basic independent language learning easier now?
I’d recommend checking out the US State Department’s language lessons. They are free.
If you were hired as a US diplomat this is the course they’d give you.
That said, I think they say the course for Italian is 24 weeks.
But, you can get a start…
ETA: I was in Italy a couple years ago and some friends I was with are fluent Spanish speakers. I was amazed at how far they could get speaking to Italians in Spanish. They could not have a full blown conversation but the languages were close enough they could muddle through without much trouble. If you happen to know Spanish I think you’ll manage better than you might expect.
Thanks, this is a pretty great resource! Old-school and kinda dry, but incredibly detailed and educational in a way that YouTube videos simply aren’t. I like that it starts with the phonemes and other basics instead of jumping right into conversational mimicry… it’s a bit “formal”, as you’d expect from government trainings, but I bet it’d be very effective if I can force myself to sit through the PDF. Thank you!
(Side note: Yeesh, I forgot how low-quality 90s audio recordings were… thankfully, they sound better after some AI processing… original vs enhanced. I’ll have to see if that website offering the courses might consider upgrading their audio.)
Heh, think you’ve seen diplomatic incidents? I’ll show ya!
Sadly, just French. But even in the few hours we’ve spent so far, there are a lot of cognates and similar conjugations. I hope this will be somewhat easier than learning French from scratch…
I’m a fan of the YouTube site Professor Dave Explains.
Dave Farina is a chemistry professor and I watch his science and math videos. But he also has a series on learning Italian (and a separate series on learning Latin).
Hah, those days are long gone! Besides, my partner might have something to say about that. Like “Mio Dio! Perché le tue scoregge puzzano così tanto stasera?!” My god, why do your farts smell so bad tonight?!
I’m pretty good at taking the romance out of any language…
She might also have to learn: “Una maledizione alle tue parti! Che tutto il tuo vino sia giovane e i tuoi formaggi sempre stantii!” A pox on your genitals! May all your wine be young and your cheeses stale!
I think I’ll just stick to restaurant menus and airport directions for now
Awesome. I love me some geeky teachers any day! I love that there is a whole series. Thanks!
(Disclaimer: I’m only fluent in English) I’ve heard that if you speak French with a Spanish accent, it will approximate Italian sufficiently to get by.
And if you want to get by in Portuguese, speak your Spanish in a French accent.
There is the story I was told where my friend’s uncle was travelling and did not speak Italian, but supposedly managed to communicate speaking Latin, and (supposedly) some people even figured he was a speaker of some Italian dialect (some form of Sardinian? Who knows)
I have seen a similar story about Ezra Pound travelling in Europe and using Latin to communicate with a priest with whom he had no other common language.
The question arises: what form of spoken Latin? Are we even sure what classical Latin sounded like? I suppose in these cases it would be the Latin used in the modern Catholic church?
While we’re pretty sure what Classical Latin sounded like, Church Latin pronounces the letters of Classical Latin as if they had their modern Italian values, and that’s pretty well known, especially in Pound’s day.
I took a lot of Spanish in high school and college, and was able to mostly muddle through in Italy, both in terms of understanding/reading and on the odd occasion that I was forced to try and say something. My wife speaks Italian more or less fluently(3-4 years of class and a summer abroad), so I let her do most of the talking!
Oddly for me, the Castilian Spanish was harder than Italian to get the gist of; the accents were all wrong for someone taught on Mexican Spanish.
I cannot ask for a recap of the story since he died last year :(, but in these anecdotes where Latin sounds close to Italian it makes sense they would have been pronouncing Church Latin rather than a reconstructed Classical pronunciation.
Now, a different friend mentioned that after a number of years of Latin in high school they were good enough to be able to speak it among each other for fun. That was not in Italy, but on that note it does make sense that an Italian priest would have studied Latin qua Latin.
I’m currently using and can recommend the Learn Italian with Paul Noble audiobook. I originally got it from my library, but liked it so much I ended up buying it. I believe it is about 13 hours total, and should get you the basics you’re looking for before the end of the month.
It’s taught in a very intuitive way that is different from other language courses I’ve tried. And it had some amazing little tricks for adding words to your vocabulary very quickly.
I tried Rosetta Stone and strongly disliked it. This is way better for me.
