🇮🇹 Italian Recommended Learning Material
Ciao 👋 ! Here’s our curated content for training your passive understanding of the language.
Instructions (tap to open)
Explore everything from phrases, grammar, to listening training. It’s useful for beginners to advanced speakers.
⏰ Time spent here also counts towards your streak.
Language competency consists of active vocabulary, but also passive vocabulary and natural pattern recognition. Train essential listening skills, understand grammar and morphing patterns.
The Basic Phrases help you start and stay in the language. Mari’s Listening-Reading videos introduces you to doing highly intensive training of your listening skills.
What makes Lingophant unique is that you can create your 100% personalised vocabulary from conversations. 45 minutes per week with a friend or a teacher is already enough input for a constant stream of engaging sentences to practice between lessons.
📔 Basic Phrases
These phrases are the perfect point of departure. They help you stay in the language, without needing to switch to English.
Start with these four sets. Unlock them one-by-one in the app, and memorize them from the “Practice” tab.
Once you’re starting to know them, add the second part of basic phrases:
This is just to get you started. For personalized phrases, we recommend sessions of 45 minutes with a native speaker. Here are our experiences with the method.
- Know 300 phrases and you can have fun in the language
- Know 600 phrases and you can uphold conversations
- Know 1000 phrases and you can start speaking effortlessly
And due to working with audio, you’ll get compliments on your pronunciation a lot. We promise!
🎧 Start Your Listening Training Here (with Mari)
🎧 The 15-minute unedited version
This is the full video of Mari talking about her life.
Learn how to work with these videos with our 30-minute follow-along. They repeat sections multiple times and tell you to focus first on English, then Italian.
🎧 Your first 30-minute follow-along session
Listening works subconsciously. You focus on listening and your brain naturally starts to understand structures. In this follow-along we repeat sections multiple times and tell you to focus first on English, then Italian.
🎧 Your second 30-minute follow-along session
We’re trying to prove that by watching and rewatching, you can understand someone speak in Italian. It works sub-consciously, takes time. But if you do this for 10 weeks, we guarantee you that it will make a massive positive difference.
🎧 Your third 30-minute follow-along session
Now you’ll get proof that by watching and rewatching, you can understand someone speak in Italian. Part of this video already has no subtitles. Can you follow what she’s speaking about? Can you capture individual words? Is it starting to feel a bit natural to you?
Go through the same process with other videos. Watching and rewatching and focusing on one language at the same time.
🎧 Background listening and printable PDF
Here is an audio file you listen to it in the background with your phone locked.
PDF is coming.
🎧 More content with double subtitles
EasyItalian also has simple content (they get a bit boring after some time, but hey). Continue with them as long as you enjoy it. Here are four examples, watch once and then rewatch them again in the future 🙂
🎧 Native Listening-Reading Channels
Turn on those subtitles, and just read along in Italian. You’ll probably understand quite a bit, and reading along helps recognizing words and structures. This will teach you how to sound natural, like nothing else can.
How to add double subtitles to any YouTube video on Google Chrome
With these instructions you can turn any YouTube (or Netflix) video into a learning experience with double subtitles. It’s entertaining content made for native speakers, and now you can follow along while listening carefully and learning.
- Download / open Google Chrome
- Install the Chrome extension “LanguageReactor”
- Open one of the videos, and look for the new LR button in the bottom bar.
- You can also explore their content library.
- Rewatch old videos, by collecting links in a note.
It’s super useful and effective. Also support them with a subscription if you can 🙂
🎧 Two channels made for learners (Lucrezia & Alberto)
These channels are targeted and language learners, which might be nice or annoying depending on your personal preferences. They speak a bit slower and repeat things sometimes.
- A lady doing travel vlogs in various Italian places – Italian with Lucrezia
- An Alberto from Brescia who shows some of his life – Italiano Automatico
🎧 Il Signor Franz, who reviews travels, and does random stuff in Italian.
Check out this channel for some entertainment in Italian. Here are playlists about:
- Tuning cars and scooters (3 videos).
- A vlog about traveling in Japan (10 videos). Lot’s of “mamma mia” and a bit of covid.
- Reviews, experiments, unboxing, more standard YouTube stuff (20 videos).
- And a series of 192 videos about traveling to various places.
🎧 Vogue Fashion with short profiles on models and fashion
Italy being the country of fashion, you might be wondering what the life of a model looks like. Watch some of their profiles and routines from the life of a model in Vogue.
They’re short, between 4 and 6 minutes.
🎧 The news being summarized in 20m videos in Italian
Here’s a page that summarizes the news in Italian on the channel Breaking Italy. Learn about what’s happening in the world, but this time with an Italian vibe to it.
Watch them ideally on a laptop, using Google Chrome so you can use the Language Reactor extension.
🧑🏫 Language Introduction and Pronunciation
Language Introduction by LangFocus (warning: great but nerdy)
If you want a perfect pronunciation, watch these videos
🧑🏫 Grammar Resources
While memorizing phrases, you’ll likely recognize patterns from grammar. In that case you can add a note / question to the card. And next time you are with a teacher, or you feel like researching grammar, you can filter your phrasebook for those with grammar questions and get them answered.
This is how a child would naturally learn a language. Your teacher or friend can also record corrections, or an example that helps you remember a grammar pattern.
For those who prefer to read through an overview, we have found a nice resource below.
🧑🏫 Well-written handbook by a Duolingo fansite
Here’s a great textual summary of all the grammar by a Duolingo fansite: https://duome.eu/tips/en/it
🧑🏫 In-depth grammar videos by Lucrezia
Further in-depth Grammar videos (20+) for Italian can be found here on Lucrezia’s channel, they are each about one specific aspect of the language. Nice to watch if you have 15 minutes and don’t feel like memorizing.
🧑🏫 Book Lessons with Recommended Teachers
We can recommend lessons with Irene, a teacher who studied several languages at university, likes literature and cultural exchanges, and has a nice energy.
She has experience teaching with our app, so you’re ready to start.
Get 5$ when you spend 20$ or more. And we will also get some credits to find new teachers.
In general, recommend a trial lesson and then booking 5 lessons at once.
You can also find your own teacher. Or ask a friend for 45 minutes each week. Explain to them how to help you with this link. https://lingophant.com/for-teachers/