# Best way to learn some basic Italian in a month?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-way-to-learn-some-basic-italian-in-a-month/1019078>\
**Category:** In My Humble Opinion\
**Created:** [June 1, 2025, 6:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-way-to-learn-some-basic-italian-in-a-month/1019078 "2025-06-01T18:35:46Z")\
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**Author:** ![Whack-a-Mole](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/whack-a-mole/32/141_2.png) [@Whack-a-Mole](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Whack-a-Mole)\
**Post date:** [June 1, 2025, 6:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-way-to-learn-some-basic-italian-in-a-month/1019078/2 "2025-06-01T18:41:55Z")

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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…

> **[FSI Language Courses - Free Online Language Courses](https://www.fsi-language-courses.org/)**
>
> The ultimate resource for all the free Foreign Service Institute language courses. Download all the courses materials, mp3 audios and PDF workbooks for French, Spanish, German, Italian, Portuguese, Arabic, Japanese, and much more.

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.

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